Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Kevin stumbles out of bed that morning with a throbbing headache settling in and making a nest between his eyebrows. He wrinkles his nose as he flings off his duvet and throws his legs over the side of the bed. He already knows what today is, and it’s exactly why he’d spent the previous night drinking alongside his brother, Riko Moriyama.

There’s another set of hurried knocks being placed against his door, so Kevin is quick to tug on the robe he discarded the night prior and open it. On the other side is a handful of people Kevin doesn’t entirely recognize. They have faces that he remembers, but their names are a memory he’s long since lost.

They bathe him, dress him, poke and prod at him until he’s fit for perfection. His outfit is sleek and suits him well, and the usual discomfort is lost, whether it’s from him having grown used to it, or if it’s from the design, he doesn’t know.

Under his green gaze is a smudge of coal, bringing out the green of his eyes. Everything else is left alone, including the two tattooed on his face. Briefly, he reaches out to run his finger over it. He knows Riko bears the matching number, the pretty 1 that stands proudly there. Kevin ignores the itch for his own.

They let him go forty minutes later to meet Riko and Tetsuji downstairs. Riko’s outfit is tailored to fit him, but is designed in the same way Kevin’s is. Their hair is styled the same way, and it’s plain to see that the only differences that they can’t quite eliminate are the tattoos and their heights.

“Let us go,” Tetsuji says blandly, leading the way out. It takes no time to reach the square, where the people of district one are gathered proudly. It’s always been a tradition to have people volunteer, but they all know exactly what would be coming up today. It was no surprise to anyone, really.

The first name called is one Kevin doesn’t recognize, but it doesn’t matter when Riko is stepping forward in their place, confident strides and the words ‘I volunteer’ wrapped around his tongue. Stifled gasps take the place where Riko stood, but Kevin ignores them.

He waits, his breath bated, for the next name. It’s not his own, and yet he raises his hand anyways. His stomach clenches at the mere thought of spitting those foul words out, of stepping up there alongside Riko and sentencing himself to death, but he does it anyways.

“I volunteer,” he says, halfway to the podium. “I volunteer as tribute!” His voice is ragged and he thinks there’s a hint of panic to his tone, but it doesn’t matter when he takes his place next to Riko. They clasp hands, raising them above their heads before they disappear.

Kevin doesn’t spare a glance behind, and he doesn't bother waving, either. Nobody cares whether he makes it out in the end, only that Riko does.

District one’s reaping plays over the television, and Nathaniel watches as he finishes buttoning up his suit. He had been woken early by people meant to help him prepare for the reaping, but all it had taken was a loud, but polite, ‘I’m fine, thank you,’ and the general dismissive wave of his hand and they had fled the room.

He didn’t mind them, really. If the circumstances of his life were any different, maybe he would’ve allowed them to help him. He has scars he doesn’t exactly want anyone else to see, starting from his shoulders down to his mid-thighs, they cross over each other like X’s on a treasure map.

He hates them.

He brushes his hands down the front of his suit, careful to keep it from wrinkling under the pressure. He knew exactly who would be watching, and exactly who would be doling punishments when the time called. He did not exactly desire to go through that today, especially not in such a nice suit.

He turns to the closest mirror just as Riko begins walking up to the stage. Nathaniel has no care to watch his formalities or to see the sadistic grin on his ‘friend’s’ face. Instead, he focuses his eyes on his reflection, dusting coal beneath them and swiping gel through his ruddy red hair.

If he notices the deadness lurking within them, he doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, he chances one last look towards the television, listening in as Kevin Day makes his own move to volunteer. Nathaniel can hear the quiver to his tone, the shakiness that turns his confidence to cowardice.

Nathaniel leaves the room and heads straight away. Along the way, he runs into Jean, number four of the careers and the one expected to volunteer after Nathaniel. He allows himself to dream, for a single, solemn moment, that his friend wouldn’t have to participate, and then flings the idea to the ground and steps on it as he moves forward.

It’s foolish to dream, he knows. He’s known this for years now, and yet he does it again and again and again. Every nightmare and every night he spends awake, he thinks he can escape again. His mother had thought so too, he reminds himself, flashing back to the moment when she’d been caught and killed.

He figured he’d have the same fate soon enough, but at least it wouldn’t be at his father’s hands this time around. Or, well, not entirely, he realizes belatedly. There was an escort standing before them, prim and proper and without a worry at all. Another capitol toy, he notes. He wouldn’t mourn her if she died.

He doesn’t even bother waiting for her mouth to open. She reaches into the bowl just as he steps forward, breaking through the peacekeepers that try to hold him back. He shoots them a glare, a headnod, and continues forward. He ignores the confused looks and the sharp gasps as he takes to the stage and focuses his gaze away from them.

He zones out the rest until Jean joins him and they can take off.

“We’re going to be fine,” Nicky says lowly. He doesn’t sound sure of himself, nor does he look the part. He grips Erik’s shirt until it wrinkles beneath his grip and presses as closely as the world will allow. There’s a dog barking somewhere in the house, and another boy yelling at it to hush. Erik ignores it in favor of placing a solid kiss at the top of his husband’s head.

“Yes,” Erik says, confident where Nicky is not. The quell had brought a sort of barrier against them, it seemed. Adding more names, more papers to be drawn. The chances of them being called had lowered significantly. There was no need for worry, was there?

Aaron busts into the room, two yapping puppies at his heels. He’s already ready, if one were to excuse the untamed mop of blonde curls that stood at the top of his head. He seems bedraggled and stressed, unsure. “The dogs won’t shut up.”

Nicky untangles himself from Erik’s arms, lowering himself to the level of their beloved pets. He runs a hand over their heads and lets out a low, reassuring hum. Despite his own anxieties, he wants the pets to feel reassured. “It’ll be okay, buddies,” he murmurs.

Aaron, annoyed and likely done with everything, disappears from the room just as quickly as he came. It is no surprise to anyone in the home, especially since they all know his girlfriend, Katelyn, will be arriving sometime soon. Though Erik is sure that the chances of any of them being picked are mighty slim, they can all feel the pressing fear that one of them will be drawn. Nobody can be sure.

There’s a timid knock on the door, one that neither of the Kloses move to react to. They know exactly who it is, and feel no need to disentangle themselves for. They all need a moment to collect themselves, to breathe everything in. Erik drops to the ground next to Nicky, allowing one of the pups to climb into his lap.

Gently, he brushes his calloused fingers over their soft head. “We’ll come back,” he says. “We’ll be fine.”

They sit like that, with breath bated and a subtle tenseness to their shoulders, until Aaron’s annoyed yell breaks them from it and reminds them what they had been preparing for.

Erik and Nicky hold hands the whole way there, and they both take notice of the way Aaron holds onto Katelyn’s hand a little tighter when they’re made to split. He pulls her in for an aching hug and presses his head to her neck. Erik thinks it must be reminiscent of a goodbye.

Him and Nicky turn away and to the front. They’re near the back of the crowd, their clasped hands hidden between warm, anxious bodies. Everyone knew what this was, what was going to happen. Fear was coating every corner, especially when the escort approaches the single bowl on the stage.

Her smile is as fake as her words and as her polished nails as she reaches into the bowl. Erik makes to grab onto Nicky just as Aaron’s name is called, loud and clear. Erik can hear the anguished cry of Katelyn and he can feel Nicky clinging to Erik for dear life, and maybe a drop or two of tears.

Erik clenches his fists and his jaw and wonders what kind of act they must have committed to deserve the cruelty of this.

He doesn’t think much after that. He hears them call for Nicky, but he holds his husband back. “Stay,” he whispers into his ear around the tears that he wants to release. He presses a soft kiss to Nicky’s forehead. “I’ll keep Aaron safe. I swear.”

Then, he stands to his full height and escapes the crowd. He is no Nicky Klose. He is not the name they called, nowhere close. But he is something better, he thinks. It would be better if Erik Klose ended as a cannon shot than Nicky.

Loudly, clearly, boldly, he speaks. “I volunteer as tribute.”

“Seth Gordon.”

There’s nobody to mourn for an addict, someone who’s grown numb to the affect of the world, but not to the effect of drugs and other pain relievers. They watch as he stumbles to the stage, spewing insults left and right. He stumbles his way up the steps. There’s vitriol in every word as he glares down at the people before him.

There have already been multiple volunteers in the earlier districts, but nobody cares for Seth Gordon. They’d cry for Riko Moriyama if he died, or Kevin Day, even. But nobody for Seth, or for Janie.

“Fuck you!” He says, pointing his words to the escort, to the peacekeepers, to every single capitol body around him. “You think you’re better than us because of your fancy clothing and your ties to the Capitol! Well guess what! You’re no better than any of us!”

Hands close around his wrists and force him back, likely towards the train. There’d be no goodbyes for either he, nor Janie, to give, but that doesn’t matter. “I’d like to see you live through the games,” he spits out finally, just before the doors close in his face.

Dan settles herself on the bed. She stares down at the clothes she’d picked out the night before, but makes no move to put it on. Matt Boyd stands before her, already dressed up and prepared for the reaping that morning. He stares down at her, but she’s unfocused and pays him no mind.

Gently, Matt sets one of his hands upon her cheek to bring her face up. “Dan,” he says, gently as he can. She glances up at him and bites her lip. Neither are ready to face the day, but they know they have to. They don’t have a choice. “We’ll be okay.”

“How can you say that?” She asks. “There’s so much-”

“Dan. Let’s not worry about that yet. Right now, we just have to put on our clothes and get there. We’ll worry about the rest when the time comes, yeah?”

He picks up her dress with practiced ease and spreads it out on her lap. It’s been one of her favorites, a pretty dress made by Matt’s mother in her off time. A deep green the color of trees. Matt had been surprised she even knew how to make clothes like that, but he supposed traveling could do that to someone

“Yeah,” Dan says. She sucks in a deep breath and begins to prepare.

The reaping is something nobody could’ve prepared for, especially not Dan or Matt. They’d prepared their clothes the night prior, but they did not prepare their minds for the devastation that came. Randi Boyd, mother to Matt, was the first to be called. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that the younger Boyd would be quick to volunteer.

Dan tries not to let it get to her, even when Matt looks at her with those eyes and she can feel her chest caving in. She wills herself not to cry, not to cry, not to cry, but she gives in when it’s her father figure--her everything-- who is called up next. She can’t stop herself from volunteering in his place. Her voice cracks and breaks when she says those damning words, those two awful words that she’s heard repeated multiple times on the television.

She could see the pleading look in Wymack’s eyes, the way he begged her not to do it, not to say it, not to give in to the black hole growing and growing and growing in her chest, but she didn’t care. Matt wouldn’t die when she was in the Arena, and Wymack would be safe at home. It would be fine. Fine, fine, fine.

“Swear it, Laila. I need you to swear it.”

“-Sara, you know I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can. Do it.”

Sara has Laila’s shoulders in a death grip and a yearning look in her eyes. There’s a heavy sort of fear hanging in the air around them. Sara can feel it. She knows she will get called. She watched the television, she’d seen the downturn of everyone’s world. The volunteers, the crying, the astonished gasps and cries. Sara knows.

She just can’t have Laila making it worse and taking her place.

“I swear,” Laila chokes out finally. “Damnit, I swear I won’t take your damn place."

“Good,” Sara says, pulling Laila close. “Thank you.”

On the way out of their house, they both plant a soft kiss to the top of their beagle’s head. Sara feels-odd. She knows this could very well be the last time she sees the puppy, so she’s sure to plant a second and a third and a fourth. A goodbye of sorts that she knows won’t be enough in the long run. She even gives Laila the tightest hug she’s ever offered before they call her name.

“Thank you,” she says again to her girlfriend, a whisper thrown over her shoulder. She knows she can handle this, but she can’t handle Laila taking her place. She can’t, she can’t, she can’t.

She’s not quite sure she can handle Jeremy Knox, her childhood best friend, taking the place next to her, either. But it seems life has become increasingly cruel as of late.

“Are you scared, Andrew?”

Andrew Dobson pauses in buttoning his suit to glance over his shoulder at his adopted mother, Bee. His first reaction is to say, no, he isn’t. But he knows better now, he thinks. It’s been a slow climb, a hill that starts small but that grows, grows, grows before his eyes. He climbs, and slips, and climbs some more. His knees still ache.

“All they did is lower our chances of getting called,” Andrew decides to say, forcing himself to close the last button. He fidgets with his outfit and focuses on anything but his adoptive mother who has no right to be half as perceptive as she is.

“That doesn’t mean anything. You can still be scared,” she says, and Andrew can practically feel her eyes on the back of his head. She’s always watching. He used to be put off by her stares, but now it’s a pseudo sort of comfort. Protection rather than plot. “I know I am.”

“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Andrew says immediately, his fists clenching as he turns to face her. She’s standing in the doorway, a calm and soothing balm to his open wounds that he could’ve sworn that he hid well. Not well enough, apparently.

“I know,” Bee says. “That’s what I’m worried about.”

“I can take care of myself.”

“You shouldn’t have to.”

Andrew drops his hands to his side and relaxes his shoulders. He knows she cares, he’s known that since he let Cass go and everyone go and finally, finally, let himself have something good and decent and that wouldn’t destroy him like he’d destroyed himself.

“Yes,” he says finally, a breath blown out between his lips. “I’m scared.”

“That’s good, Andrew.” Bee approaches him slowly and in steady movements, careful enough to where he can stop her if he wants, puts her arms on his shoulders. She pulls him close in an embrace he returns. “It’s okay to be scared.”

Andrew looks over her shoulder, to the muted television on the other side of the room. On screen is a replay of the earlier reapings, displaying the tears, anger, and someone with his face. Bee backs away and he allows his mask to slip for one, one, measly second. That was him, but it wasn’t, was it?

Bee follow his gaze, watches what he sees, and says “Oh, Andrew.”

She pulls him close again, and Andrew holds onto that moment when they finally leave to go to the reaping. He can feel the restless energy of the crowd as his gaze washes over it.

On stage, he watches as a woman dressed to the nines steps up. She mutters some needless nonsense into a mic, the same droning bullshit he hears every year as he stands in the same place. It never changes; not the violence, the dramatics, the way things happen.

The only difference is that this year there was a coil of dread wrapped tight around his belly, a snake with its fangs embedded deep and pumping its venom inside him. He can feel it start when they call Betsy’s name, grow wilder as he volunteers in her place, heavier as he steps up and takes his place on stage, and at its worst when Drake Spear takes the place next to him.

He ignores all of it; the pressure, the anger, the sickness churning within him, the looks he receives from everyone and from Drake. He looks to Bee instead, gives her a nod, and exits the stage.

Chapter Text

Nathaniel isn’t surprised by the Capitol deciding not to let people bring others along, or their decision to keep them from having anyone to speak to. There are no goodbyes. Maybe one last glance in the corridor before someone’s whisked off stage, or a muttered goodbye before their name is called, but no formal ‘I'll see you in the afterlife’ for any of the tributes.

While maybe it isn’t a concept set in stone, Nathaniel had no hopes or issue with the lack of. He hadn’t guessed it, but he could easily assume so. The Capitol was nothing if not rude and unkind. Dragging the people they’re sending off to be killed onto a train like they were little more than bags of flour, hm.

The train is sturdy, likely made by the sixth district. Nathaniel hadn’t been fortunate enough to visit, but he knows his mother had wanted to visit at one point in her life, before her father caught and killed her. That was beside the point, however.

Lola meets them aboard the train, lacking the peacekeeper arm accessories or man-handlers that Jean and Nathaniel had branded upon their own boarding. She’s dressed up, the picture of district two’s luxury and showing off her ‘pet’ position. Nathaniel is surprised he still has eyes after staring at the sequins stitched into her dress.

But then again, Lola is ugly enough that a simple glance in her direction might do one’s eyesight in. Or perhaps that was just him projecting his feelings about her personality onto his vision of her. His bad, of course.

Nathaniel chooses not to speak as she beckons both him and Jean forward. A quick tour of the train, no doubt. It, too, is spacious and exactly like one would expect it to be given Capitol standards. Nathaniel hates it on principle.

His room, Jean’s room, Lola’s room, dining room. Meet back later. That’s all the information Nathaniel is willing to retain before he ditches, heading away and taking his time to undress. There’s clothes stocked up in the closet of his room and there’s a shower with his name written on it. His skin itches with stares and his scars burn with phantom pain.

He wonders how much trouble he’d get into for burning the whole train down, especially if they couldn’t quite pin it on him.

He decides to further ponder on that as he bathes, rubbing lavish soaps over his skin and the various types of shampoos through his hair. They have other things, oils, scented cleansers, lotions, razors, other things that Nathaniel is certain they’re going to lather him in when it comes time for him to meet with Kathy or anyone else.

Unfortunately or fortunately, he doesn’t feel like becoming a doll quite yet. He shuts off the water and wraps himself up in one of the hanging robes, not looking in the mirror on his way out of the bathroom. He’s quite certain he wouldn’t see much of his reflection anyways, not with the amount of steam clogging the room.

He glances at the clock instead, finding he has a bit of time before he’s supposed to meet Lola and Jean and the others back in the dining cart. He considers lying on his bed instead of putting on clothes, but he can guess how well that act would go with Lola, so he decides to be good. For now.

He meets them, on time, dressed about as well as he usually is. He purposefully avoided their brightly-colored clothes in favor of their darker shades, and ignores the look their escort gives him for it. Jean had obviously done the same, and he knows how they feel about it.

Lack of taste and whatnot. Nathaniel couldn’t give less of a fuck.

He chooses to settle in next to Jean, which lands him a spot that isn’t next to Lola. He can’t exactly complain about that, now can he?

Spread out around the table is a messy assortment of foods that Nathaniel can’t decipher if he wants to taste or not. None of them seem to be delicacies from his specific district, but instead from the various different ones. Oysters and lobster from four, some sort of soup that he thinks is from ten or so.

He decides that would be best, taking it with some bread. Lola’s plate is stacked high and she looks as if she expects him to copy, but he meets her eyes when he tears off a bit of bread and dips it directly into his bowl. A crooked smirk mars his face at the look he receives for it. He doesn’t particularly care for that, either.

Their tense meal wraps up rather quickly, between silent glares and glances and the nudges that Jean gives to his side. Perhaps a warning, perhaps not. Nathaniel doesn’t know, Nathaniel doesn’t care.

He leaves his bowl where it is when he stands, and he doesn’t ask to be excused before he disappears back to his room.

When they get to the tower, it’s supposed to be a day to rest, followed by training. Nathaniel knows that. Sleep evades him on the train nonetheless, something that seems to happen when someone related to his father is too close, too close, too close. Lola looms over him like a threat, as does his time in the arena.

If his mother had been a little faster, he could’ve avoided the games. Maybe he would’ve died earlier, or maybe he would’ve had a definite chance at living a fulfilling life. Either way, it would’ve been better than diving head-first into a hellscape.

Nathaniel steps out of his room, barefoot. The ground is cold, but he powers through as he makes his way to Jean’s room. This isn’t the first time the two of them have done something like this. That’s what he reminds himself of when he plants three firm knocks against the door.

That night, they spend less time sleeping and more time talking strategy. They rewatch the repeapings, from district one to district twelve. None of them seem particularly threatening on the screen, especially not when some of them are crying or fretting over someone they care about.

“Wait until we meet them. We’ll see what they’re like then,” Nathaniel decides.

“Go to sleep.”

Chapter Text

The opening ceremony comes first, Nathaniel remembers a bit too late. Watching the games is always a mandatory thing, but he had found small, subtle ways to avoid doing such needless bullshit. Maybe that is the only reason he could’ve allowed himself to forget.

The train reaches the Capitol rather quickly, if he can even judge the amount of time it had taken. He always assumed it would take longer, but apparently not. They don’t even bother going to their specific floor before they’re meeting with their designer.

Allison Reynolds is new to the scene, but she apparently isn’t about to let that bother her. Blonde, and what the Capitol calls beautiful, she is all business and a lot of sass. Nathaniel likes her, he thinks. He doesn’t like the flirtatious comments that he can’t quite pretend he doesn’t notice, but he doesn’t mind her brisk movements or her harsh words.

She tugs his hair when she trims it, and she forces him to lather himself in the things that he knew she would when he’d showered earlier. It’s a bit much in his opinion, but he knows that this is how it usually goes when it comes down to things like this.

“I’ve got a few ideas in the works for you and Jean’s outfits,” she tells him offhandedly, flipping through a sketchbook he didn’t know she had until now. He’s clad in a soft robe, and his entry had been quiet. Apparently, Allison isn’t as Capitolistic as she seems at first glance.

He opts not to respond to her comment, choosing to let her continue, or not. If she has something to say, she can easily say it, but it doesn’t bother him either way.

“You’re district two, pets of the Capitol and you’re big on weapons and masonry. We’ve seen Gods, we’ve seen what everyone wants to see. This year’s bound to be the biggest, though. The best even. They’re rooting for Riko Moriyama right now, I’m sure everyone knows that, though.”

Nathaniel nods just as Allison stops flipping pages. She turns the book over. “I think I want to go for something else.”

Nathaniel finds he doesn’t like crowds as much as everyone else does. Loud, noisy, and irritating, he’d rather avoid them if he had the chance. He doesn’t. He stops by his chariot for all of five seconds to give one of the horses a solid pat on the back and to meet with Jean. They’re set to leave in maybe five, ten minutes, which is just enough time for the pair of them to find out who all they’re up against.

Riko and Kevin are already next to their own chariot, locked in a debate Nathaniel has no interest in taking part of. In fact, if he could, he’d avoid Riko entirely. Kevin doesn’t seem as bad as Riko. He’s tall, sure, but Riko has a sadistic kind of smile that’s a cold mockery of his father’s. He also knows that look in Riko’s eyes, and he doesn’t like it.

District three is a pair that Nathaniel is sure he would have no problem handling when the time came. They were smart, he knew that much, but brains could only get one so far in an area keen on having brawns, as well. Four seemed to have both, a large, built man and a smaller, lankier one that seems closer to his age.

He doesn’t think either of them will be much of a problem, but he meets the larger one’s gaze for good measure before moving along. When Nathaniel had watched the television the morning of the reaping, he can recall seeing district six’s Seth Gordon’s on-screen meltdown about being called.

A man on so many drugs can only present one issue, and it’s the personal kind, and a girl as tiny as Janie Smalls could be strong, but Nathaniel is willing to bet she’d go down by someone else before he could even set eyes on her in the arena.

Dan Wilds and Matt Boyd are both volunteers, if Nathaniel remembers properly, so he thinks they might be strong enough to do some damage if he runs into them. They’re both built, likely since they hail from the lumber districts. He imagines chopping trees for living might add some strength to a person, maybe.

Down the line, Nathaniel considers them. In a fight, some would be better suited to dodge, to run, to evade, and others seemed more likely to jump into battle with fists flying. He takes meagre guesses to weapons; knives and axes, batons and traps. He also figures some of them wouldn’t like to fight at all; smiles and timidness hinted at either a mask, one meant to deceive others, or a general lack of want to kill.

Nathaniel won’t be guessing the second until it’s proven. Wide eyes and innocence won’t help anyone against Nathaniel in these games. He has to pause when he reaches district eleven. He turns his head back, towards district four. There are two distinctly similar shapes; same hair, same eyes, same stance, same face. The differences lay in build, in calloused hands, in the way they carried themselves. Nathaniel assumes they don’t know each other. Sent different ways at birth, he thinks.

He approaches the bulkier one, the one he’s closest to. He seems strong, but small. Dangerous despite his size, and unwilling to care about the turnout of the event. Nathaniel sets a hand on the horse, brushing a gentle, calloused hand through their hair while keeping his gaze focused on the man who seemed dead set on not looking in his direction.

Nathaniel didn’t come here for conversation, or to talk. He came here to size up. The latter doesn’t seem to be working, but he still isn’t in the mood for the former. So, Nathaniel smiles his father’s smile, bats his pretty eyes and licks his lips. “I think your twin’s here.”

He offers no other commentary when he finally looks in his direction. In fact, he’s already headed off back to his chariot.

They leave in order. District one first, followed by two, three, four, etc. Nathaniel doesn’t like being one of the first, but he thinks he’d like it better if he came before Riko and Kevin. They soak up the attention like a sponge, and Nathaniel wishes that one of the roses thrown in their direction would hit a little harder. Stab a little deeper.

Unfortunately, it seems the thorns have been cut.

Their outfits are all diamonds and glitter, the picture of the Capitol’s luxury. Smiles and bright faces. One and Two, respectively. They are what they are bred to be, but nobody can see that right now. They can’t see the scars of training.

Nathaniel doesn’t wipe the scorn off his face in time for their chariot to leave, but that’s part of the point. His chin is high and his face is emotionless. Wiped as clean as the armour coating his body. Jean and he, the district two tributes; born with the weapons and forged from the same fire. They’re warriors, just like they were both to be. Nathaniel thinks they wear it well, and he makes sure they know it when he finally puts on his father’s smile, the final piece of his outfit. He doesn’t let it drop, even when the ride ceases.

Chapter Text

Andrew can’t shake the feeling he is being watched. It started after that boy, the blue-eyed one from the opening, had approached him. He doesn’t like the feeling, the pressure at the back of his head that feels like a fire lighting itself.

It makes him want to tear the hair from his scalp and set the entire tower ablaze. Renee stands between him and Drake in the elevator, a silent bodyguard that Andrew will never admit to needing. He’s strong, stronger than the others, but he knows he’s weak when Drake is involved.

He wants to throttle him, but his hands shake when he thinks about it.

The elevator dings on the eleventh floor and Andrew is the first out. He doesn’t wait for Drake, for Renee, for anyone, really. He hightails it to his own room and locks the door before anyone can come in. It’s a relief, having a door that closes and locks and won’t let anyone in without his own discretion.

His hands are shaking when he finally falls back onto his bed. He’s still in the scratchy outfit Reynolds had stuffed him into, but he tugs off the gloves and kicks off his shoes so he can have some semblance of comfort.

Now that it’s quiet, and there’s nothing much to think about aside from the training that he knows they’ll be going to come morning, his mind goes back to two things. The red-haired boy from district two, Nathaniel Wesninski, and the boy with his face. District four.

He wonders how he managed to get across the continent between his own reaping and district four’s. He wonders if he’s simply imagining the entire situation. Maybe, he thinks, this is some weird hallucination. Another nightmare to add to his collection. His wrists, bare and free of the gloves that had covered them, are still scarred. If he presses down on them, the ridges feel real. He is real.

He is awake.

And yet, the only person who had talked to him about his matching piece was the one who couldn’t be real. He’d stood there too long, too quiet, too knowing; watching with a blank-slate of a stare. He wonders what Nathaniel could’ve been looking for. A chip in the armor? A tiny piece of him that Andrew would never let anyone see?

He doesn’t think Nathaniel found anything, seeing as he left. But Andrew knows that smile. It’s not a smile, not quite a scowl, not quite anything. Nothing but a warning, at least. He’s all danger, Andrew thinks. Nathaniel isn’t all muscle. He’s lean and seems more like a runner, but Andrew can’t say he missed the thin scars on his hands from knife-handling.

He also knows exactly how the career packs work. Training, training, training, but for what? A chance to die to kill each other in hell-scape of an arena? Watching the games was mandatory, a source of entertainment for some and fear for others. The former for the trainers, the latter for the trainees.

Andrew drops his head back and closes his eyes. His mind conjures up the image of a smaller version of Nathaniel with a knife in his hand, curling around his fingers, clumsy and unpracticed. He images the blood welling up from the cuts and the immediate admonishing from whoever was teaching him.

Andrew sees his own cuts and scars, too, and feels no sympathy.

In fact, he feels nothing.

Sleep finds him easily after that, blending images of himself, his clone, and Nathaniel Wesninski.

Chapter Text

The next day finds Nathaniel and Jean leaving the minimal comfort of their floor of the tower in matching outfits. They head straight for the gymnasium, early as they are. The training wasn’t truly supposed to begin until ten o’clock, but those who supervise them, such as Lola, have other plans that don’t include allowing them a few extra hours of sleep.

So, early it is.

Nathaniel fights off a yawn as the elevator dings, the doors opening to reveal everything they’d be going through today. They had plenty of options in terms of what they could go to, do, use, etc, but most people tended to linger where they were strongest. It was all to show off, to intimidate. Nathaniel didn’t think he really needed that advantage.

Many of the tributes have already assembled, which Nathaniel takes note of as he and Jean move to join them. Early as they are, the others are here as well. He wonders if it’s usual, for everyone to get here before the posted time, and opts not to question it. Most of the tributes are groggy-eyed and look moments from collapsing, but there are a few choice ones who stand straight-backed and wide-eyed, almost excited.

Nathaniel scoffs.

“It might do you some good not to judge so early,” Jean mutters solemnly from his side, but Nathaniel ignores him. He does what he wants, even if he shouldn’t. Part of the games was judgement. Nathaniel was looking for people who might present a challenge, and people who could help him out for a bit.

There were only three groups of people in the games to Nathaniel. Those he could use for his own gain, those who will die before he reaches them, and those he plans to eradicate before they can do the same to him.

He knows his chances of surviving are slim, especially since he has no plans to win when Jean stands beside him. His only goal, really, is to ensure that Riko Moriyama doesn’t win. It would be a conceit, a forfeit in a game that he never chose to play. It’d make everything he had done, every challenge he didn’t make, worthless.

Nathaniel didn’t do worthless things. He had, once, and it had cost him his mother. Now? Now he knew better. Riko Moriyama would not win the games. Not now, not ever.

All kings must fall.

The training begins like this: they are reminded they aren’t allowed to harm each other prior to the games, but they are allowed to spar with one of the trainers. They are told they should not focus primarily on weaponry, as other valuable skills could be taught and learned during training. They are told they would be eating lunch, as there is a dining room attached to the gymnasium.

Then, they are left to their own devices, to spread out. Out of the corner of his eye, Nathaniel can see that Riko is headed for the knives. He can see the subtle turning of heads, the way their eyes open and move to follow the short boy to the station.

They are afraid, Nathaniel notes. He is not.

Kevin has broken away from Riko, just in time for a soft crowd to gather. Nathaniel pretends he doesn’t notice, because he doesn’t care. Jean has paused, but Nathaniel keeps going. He knows what Riko is capable of, because he, too, is capable of it. There are knife scars around his fingers, light and thin. There are scars across his abdomen and across his chest, ragged and improperly healed. There is blood on his hands from where he tried to hold himself together.

Riko Moriyama has none of those things, just a spotlight and an inclination to sharp things, to assist his yearning for murder.

Nathaniel ignores the weaponry and his fellow career pack tributes and makes his way towards the camouflage station. There’s someone else there, one he recognizes. It’s not the boy from four, Minyard. This one is harder, sharper, with a blank look in his hazel eyes. Dobson. He remembers their brief conversation before the chariot rides and has to fight back a smile.

He wonders if he had been able to shake Andrew. The look in his eyes had said no, but the way his gaze followed said yes. Nathaniel isn’t intimidating, not really. He’s small in every way; height, weight, stature. That’s what makes people look away, to not worry. They don’t look closely.

He thinks Dobson does.

“Hello,” Nathaniel says, politely, with a knife’s edge of danger to tilt his voice. He’s not surprised that Dobson is here, not really. He doesn’t seem interested in anything or anybody, so it’s really nothing to be surprised about. He must recognize that Riko is hardly a threat.

There’s another girl, a small, young girl, that Nathaniel thinks he recognizes from the reaping as well. Smalls, a fitting name. She’s shaking as she covers herself in mud, from her fingers to her elbows. Nathaniel turns away.

He receives a response from neither Dobson, nor Smalls, but he doesn’t make any further commentary either. They work in silence, their backs to the spectacle that Riko makes with his knives. It’s a source of amusement for Nathaniel in the end.

Lunch comes rather quickly, Nathaniel observes. He’s able to cleanse his arms and remove the dirt from his skin before going to eat. He knows where he’s supposed to go, and does, even if he doesn’t want to. He follows Jean closely and settles by his side, across from Riko. They share a look, one that doesn’t seem to please the raven-haired boy.

“People are talking, Nathaniel,” Riko says, blandly, slowly. Nathaniel takes a bite of his food while pointedly looking away. In fact, he thinks he spots Dobson chatting it up with Minyard and Klose. Odd. “They think you’re weak. That the son of this year’s gamemaker is going to drag the careers down. You don’t want to be a target, do you, Nathaniel?”

Lazily, his gaze moves to meet Riko’s. He doesn’t mind being a target, he’s always been one. At home, with Riko, everywhere. He makes himself one, sometimes. It draws them close enough to kill, in the end. He doesn’t say that, though. Instead, he mutters some half-intelligible form of “No.”

It’s a lie, but it seems to please Riko.

“Good,” Riko says, a lightness to his voice that’s smothered by the darkness of his soul. “Making yourself a target would bring people to us. They’d try to pick us out first. They’ll hunt for us, for you.”

Riko pauses, taking a bite of his own food.

“And we wouldn’t want that now would we?”

Chapter Text

Riko is the first to go in. His head is high when he enters through doors that shut as soon as he passes. Kevin watches him retreat with green eyes that fret too much and linger much too long on his own hand. There are scars on Kevin’s hands, too. They aren’t like Nathaniel’s, caused by knives that dance around his fingers gracefully. Those have always been for Riko and for Nathaniel, never for Kevin.

Kevin’s scars are caused by something, or rather, someone, else. He doesn’t speak on who, he doesn’t dare to. He just wears them like a badge to be proud of outside, but stares down at them in shame, in fear, on the inside.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do once he enters the gymnasium, what he’s going to show the judges and gamemakers. His aim is off, ruined by wounded pride and a fear of further damage. He just knows that he has to do good, but not too good.

Riko returns and Kevin looks up. He meets his brother’s gaze for a second too long before he looks down again.

He can’t be better, ever. He’s stagnant and idle, and that’s how it has to stay.

He stands and follows the invisible footprints Riko left when he made the same trek into the room, and prays he does something good enough to please his brother, but not something too good, lest he displease him instead.

He might as well walk a tightrope, he finds he’s rather good at that by now.

Riko and Kevin both get TENS.

Jean goes in before Nathaniel does. He gives a parting nod of his head when Kevin returns, then disappears. He’s good at that, Nathaniel notes. He has light feet for someone so large. He passes like a ghost; there and gone. Nathaniel wonders if that was something he’s learned or not.

Time passes slowly now that he’s alone. Well, he’s not truly alone, since there’s tributes all around him. They pass in an easy order, with one going first and twelve going last. Nathaniel doesn’t feel safe surrounded by the others, but he doesn’t let it show. He just scans them, takes note of the way they carry themselves.

The stiff backs, the way their heads lift towards the ceiling. The tremble in their fingers that they themselves may be missing. The clenching of jaws, and the flash of their eyes. Subtle signs of anxiety and an urge to fight back against the system. Nathaniel can understand the anger felt by the former victors. He can’t relate to them, but he can understand. He doesn’t pity them, however. There’s no pity for those in the games, going into the arena.

Jean returns. He’s quiet when he does, a lack of sound to his steps. Nathaniel can feel the air shift to allow him through, even if none of the others can. Another subtle nod, a soft glance between them. There’s no need for ‘good luck’ for them; they know they’re good.

Nathaniel’s lips quirk up, his father’s smile. Jean turns away and leaves and Nathaniel takes that for what it is: his cue to head in. Without a second glance back, he goes the same way that Riko, Kevin, and Jean had. Inside the gymnasium, it’s the same. The stations stand in the same places. The difference is the people, perched high in their safety box.

Nathaniel sees his father and fights off a grimace. He feels his eyes all the way across the room until he settles in the center. His father knows what he will do. Like father, like son. They learn the same tips and tricks in the end.

He moves towards the knives, his legs like liquid. They shake and nearly buckle, but he fights it off and hides it behind an easy gait. Their eyes, their eyes, their eyes. He can’t escape them, not here.

He takes a knife in his hand, rotates it. Tosses it up and catches it. He tests the handle and runs his finger along the sharp ridges. He barely notices when the blood wells up in turn. Maybe not pleased, but satisfied with the grip, he grabs four others, all similar.

He looks up, first to his left, then to his right. Returns to the center, calmer than he had been before despite Lola’s voice in his mind. There’s another voice, stronger, next to hers. It’s not his father’s. Nathaniel nods to it, but nobody can see but the judges, his father. They do not know.

He throws one knife. It hits a target, near the archery station. It has holes poked through it already, but Nathaniel’s runs straight through it and into the center.

Another. It spins once, twice, three times, before embedding itself in the metal infrastructure of the gymnasium.

Another. Someone before him (Jean, Riko, Kevin) must’ve done rope typing. There’s a doll hanging from the ceiling by it’s wrist, trapped in place. A well timed throw on Nathaniel’s part has the rope falling alongside it.

Two more. They already know he knows how to use knives. He doesn’t expect a high, or even a good, number. Maybe his father will give him one so they will target him, kill him, leave him to bleed early on in the game. Nathaniel approaches the doll,

He uses one knife to carve it just like he was taught. He tears it apart with some of the minimal time he has remaining before leaving the knife embedded in the doll’s neck. Sloppy, he hears a voice say. Messy.

There is no blood on his hands for this, just a knife.

A knife he uses. He uses to carve one word, one familiar title, into the chest plate that lies to the side. In crooked letters that he raises to show his father and the others, is KING.

He throws it behind him as he leaves and does not care about what they say as he exits.

Jean settles with an EIGHT. Nathaniel, an ELEVEN.

Aaron sits close to Erik, but not too close. He’s on edge, he knows. There’s people around him, unfamiliar and unwelcoming. Erik is here, too, but he’s not a comfort he’s willing to indulge in. There’s too much happening, he thinks.

He knows about the boy from twelve, the one with his face. He knows that Nicky is back home, crying, alone. He knows that Katelyn is biting her fingernails down to the quick fretting about him. He knows he won’t be coming back.

He did not get to say goodbye to Katelyn.

He thinks about how he should’ve written her a letter while he waits. The careers come and go, unhurried, unworried. He doesn’t watch the district three tributes. In and out, in and out, they leave in a steady stream and his heartbeat grows louder the closer they get to him.

Erik goes before he does.

He secretly hopes that Erik gets a low score. He hopes it’s so low and nobody considers him a threat. He hopes they leave Erik alone. He wants Erik to win, yearns for it. Nicky had taken him in, treated him like family, despite everything. Nicky deserves a chance at love, but Aaron winning would ruin all of that. It’s why Aaron won’t live. He’ll kill himself for a chance to let Nicky have what he deserves.

Aaron isn’t strong enough to survive, not really. All he has is the knowledge of plants that’ll keep him fed. He can keep Erik alive and out of trouble for so long, but in the end, he isn’t capable of fighting back. Not really.

Aaron barely notices when Erik returns. There’s a hand on his shoulder, a large one. He glances up and meets Erik’s gaze, knowing and warm. Smiling despite everything. Aaron hates it.

Abruptly, he stands, shouldering his way past Erik. He’s not going to make it out, he knows. He keeps realizing it everytime he moves. It’ll be best to say his goodbyes to everything now and detach himself.

He’ll do this, keep Erik alive, die. That’s all that’s left for him to do.

Erik gets a SEVEN. Aaron, a SIX.

Seth is angry. He sits near the back next to a girl he hasn’t bothered to learn the name of. She’s small and mousey and has tried to speak to him on numerous occasions. He’s fidgety and sweaty, shaking because he knows his emergency stash is running low.

He’d been promised one thing. They told him if he won, he wouldn’t be bothered again. He didn’t expect to be thrown right back into it, expected to kill and fight once more.

So yes, he is angry.

He glares at everyone who looks in his direction and ignores anyone who speaks to him. He didn’t attend any of the training sessions; hadn’t bothered. He has been there before, years ago. The system hasn’t changed, he knows. Why would it? They would have told him what to do, not to ignore the survival stations. The cafeteria would be full of useless chattering and alliance-forming.

He will never understand any of the other tributes, their useless need for making friends. Only one person makes it out in the end.

Seth doesn’t plan to live through this one.

He’s not a suicidal idiot. He won’t step off early, he won’t let them have that. He’ll fight for his life and he’ll make it as far as he can, but he knows he won’t make it out in the long run. He’s just going to spit vitriol and tell the world how fucked up he thinks their system is.

The fourth quarter quell, the 100th game. He can feel just how special everyone thinks it is, but they don’t know. They don’t know the terrors that crawl in his dreams, the ones he’s forced to kill and euthanize with syringe after syringe. Pill after pill.

They will never know until he tells them, so he will.

Then he will die.

Charles knows it, his district-mate knows it, everyone knows it.

That’s why he stares up at the judges until his time is up.

Seth Gordon is angry, and he’s going to make sure they know it by the time they manage to take him out in the arena.

Seth gets a ZERO. Janie gets a FIVE.

Dan Wilds is tired of Matt Boyd.

She loves him to pieces, really and truly, but she can tell he’s willing to put his life on the line. She turns away from his puppy eyes and wills him to disappear, for this to be a dream. She curls her hands into fists and fights the hallucinations off, but in the end, she realizes again.

This is her reality.

She knows they will not both make it out. It’s one or the other, him or her. She hopes, prays, begs that it’ll be him. She tells Wymack to focus on Matt. Matt has more training, she says. His mother is a boxer and has taught him some things, she says. He will make it out.

She’s not sure if she was trying to convince him or herself more.

Dan Wilds is tired of lying.

She lies in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking about home. She tells herself, sometimes, that she is dreaming and that soon she will open her eyes and will be back there. Trees will surround her, there will be an axe in her hand, and she will have the freedom to do what she likes. Then she will sleep, and she will wake up. She will still be here.

She lies to Matt, too. She looks at him, raises her hand to his face and kisses his jaw. She tells him that they’ll be okay. She knows he doesn’t believe her, and that she doesn’t either. They won’t be making it out, not together. They can’t.

Dan Wilds is tired of waiting.

There are twelve tributes who disappear and return before she does. Their faces are familiar, as she’s watched the reaping a thousand times over, trying to memorize who she’s going against. She watches their faces closely, even now. She gauges whether or not they did good by the looks they’re wearing. Cocky and arrogant, nervous and afraid, blank and unbothered.

Dan Wilds is ready.

She releases Matt Boyd’s hand with a learned, gentle squeeze, and disappears. She hopes she looks confident when she comes back out.

Dan and Matt both receive EIGHTS.

Sara sits blank faced as she watches everyone come and go. She knows everything she will be doing when she enters that room after everyone else, has known since she got picked. She’s planned it carefully, strategically. She avoided everything having to do with it during training.

She now sits next to Jeremy Knox. They trade quiet whispers back and forth, about home and what they’ll do when they get back. They get dirty looks for it, but she knows they are not the only ones who are planning. Hoping. Wondering.

It’s uncertain whether or not any of them will make it out alive, but they all want to dream.

Sara thinks about Laila, about their puppies. Returning battle-worn and tired, but a victor. She doesn’t think about what it would mean, having to kill Jeremy and having to kill some of the other victors for a chance to come home to her girlfriend.

She doesn’t want to.

So she doesn’t.

She thinks about how happy Laila would be to see her again. She thinks about wrapping her up in a warm hug and staying in bed for days at a time, reveling in the warmth of everything she knows. A good life, a good time.

There are too many what ifs for her to think about anything past that. She knows it’s dangerous- getting ahead of herself. She does it too often to not. For all her careful planning, she knows if she doesn’t put a leash on herself, she’ll take off without a glance behind.

She doesn’t want to do that. She doesn’t want to dream, hope, believe, and watch as it all comes crumbling down before her in her last few moments. She saw the other tributes. She knows what she’s up against- or rather, she believes she does.

She knows that her chances of making it out in the end are slim. She wants to believe she will survive, that she’ll get to pet her puppies and kiss her girlfriend, but she knows.

She knows.

Jeremy nudges her softly. His smile wobbles and teeters on the edge of anxiety. She’s never seen him like this before. Briefly, she thinks about how soon, she’ll never see him again at all.

Closing her eyes, she sucks in a deep breath. Then, with all the courage she can muster, she moves forward and carries out her plans.

These plans are the easy ones, the ones that will be keeping her alive, however, are not.

Laila and Jeremy both receive solid SIXES.

Andrew didn’t go to the second training session. He went to the first, and he went to the third, but he took pleasure in skipping one. He didn't miss anything. It was the same stupid shit on repeat, every day. He only went the third day to commit the other survival stations to memory. His stupidity won’t kill him, not now.

If he could have skipped this, too, he thinks he would have. Instead, he goes with all the others back to the gymnasium for a fourth time, where they all pile together and sit annoyingly close. Drake lingers by his side, too happy for someone who could get a measly ‘one’. He smiles like someone who wasn’t put into the games for no fucking reason.

Well, Andrew thinks. Maybe it isn’t for no reason. Karma might have finally come around. And if not, Andrew will be the thing that finally brings him down.

His hands ball up and shake at the mere idea of finally embedding a knife between his shoulder blades. Maybe into his chest, his leg, his-.

Well, he’ll just see when they get there.

His foot taps as he waits, impatient as ever. He hates waiting, but he’s forced to do it. He considers getting up, sitting opposite of the room of Drake. He wouldn’t care if anyone were to take notice, but yet he stays still.

Where he sits doesn’t matter.

He isn’t Drake Spear’s ally, and he never will be.

He hopes they find that out quick, and use the knowledge to spear through Drake’s stomach and kill them before Andrew has to do it himself.

He takes a moment of his time, which is plentiful considering the wait, to bask in the idea of Drake’s death. The blood, the gagging. The blissful moments as Drake realises he won’t be making it out of the arena. He thinks about it for a long time. The beauty of it all. The wonders of karma collecting her dues.

He hopes Drake dies slowly, but he knows not to hope too much. He never quite gets what he wants, does he?

No, no he does not.

Andrew watches everyone come in and out with a blank, dull stare. He brushes most of them off as insignificant, because that’s what they are. They could all kill him, if they really tried. Maybe they didn’t have to try, actually. Opportunity could grant them the chance.

He doesn’t pretend to know.

Wesninski comes and goes. His clone━Aaron━comes and goes. The others come and go. Drake comes and goes. Andrew wonders if he could skip this, and decides he can’t. It’d be funny if he could, but he knows Renee would give him the look. The look she always gives him when she’s disappointed.

He doesn’t care to see it today. He waits until Drake disappears from his sight to head in, precious minutes late. They tell him how much time he has remaining, since his tardiness cost him ‘precious; seconds.

He wastes no time when he retrieves one, single knife from the closest wall. It caused quite the cut in the metal, he notes as he pulls it free. He doesn’t care.

The room is a mess, from what he can tell. Art and paint, berries and eviscerated, life-sized dolls. Knives embedded in the walls. He kicks a stray part of the doll, watches it roll over from the force.

He nearly laughs aloud at letters carved into it.

Someone clearly wasn’t happy when they entered the room, now were they?

Andrew’s time tick, tick, ticks on, counting down, down, down to when he can leave. He walks around for a bit, counting the time as he makes the knife disappear and reappear in and out of his arm bands.

He hears one of the people stand, begin to say his name. A pronounced ‘D’. Andrew turns and throws the knife. Up, up, up. It goes across the room and reenters the wall, this time behind the judges. They stop speaking.

He laughs as he leaves.

Andrew gets a TWELVE, Drake a FIVE.

Chapter Text

Andrew is, quite honestly, tired of being one of the last. He supposes this time it has its perks, given the fact that he can chill comfortably outside the spotlight while the others wait in line for their turn to be interviewed. There’s a television backstage, lit up and colorful. It flashes between Kathy and the interviewee, then the crowd.

Andrew can see colorful wig after colorful wig, and he nearly pukes at the sight. They’re ugly, gaudy, and not truly necessary for anyone to have, yet they wear it anyways. Not because they need to, but because it shows off how much money they have. How much they can afford.

Andrew wishes he was meeting them in the arena.

He leans back against a wall boredly, eyes locked on the television. There’s others around him, dressed up to the nines in whatever Reynolds or whoever else had decked them out in. He, too, is dressed up. His outfit is stiff and clingy, be he can’t find it within himself to care that much. Not at all.

On television, Jean Moreau, the partner of one red-haired menace, speaks. Kathy seems eager to draw information from him, about Riko and about the careers and about how he must feel about going into the arena. He takes it all in stride, but Andrew can see the twitches. The clenching of fists. The anxiety stiffening his shoulders.

He tunes the rest of it out, and waits until the cheering starts to signify the next person approaching.

Nathaniel Wesninski.

He’s dressed in what looks to be soft wool, but there’s orange undertones beneath the jacket. There’s charcoal lining his eyes, highlighting the blue. His red hair is mused and styled to look messy.

If Andrew were to make an educated guess, he would assume that Nathaniel was dressed as a fox- not a wolf- in sheep’s clothing.

Kathy apparently wastes no time with him, her bubbly voice pouring out as soon as Nathaniel manages to grab a seat. Andrew would tune her out, would turn away, but he can fight the vague interest he has in the man.

“Oh, Nathaniel. You look lovely tonight. Is that wool?” Kathy doesn’t ask before she reaches out to brush her hand over the jacket. Andrew watches Nathaniel twitch, struggle not to take his arm back. He takes note of the lack of a smile.

“It is. It’s nice and cozy.”

Nathaniel shifts back, away from Kathy, but it looks easy. Fluid. Not like he’s escaping, as he likely is. Andrew nearly scoffs at the screen. Instead, he looks away for a moment, taking in the others who are lined up. Drake is directly in front of him, large and wearing the same-albeit different-suit.

Andrew would like to bury him in it.

But he can’t. He won’t be burying Drake, someone else will. They’ll take his mangled body and ship him off. Andrew can’t even harm him yet, though he sure does wish he could. He would love to stick a knife into his back, twist until he drops, and leave him behind. Instead, he just returns his attention to the television.

“Now, Nathaniel,” Kathy starts again, batting her fake eyelashes as she leans forward. “You’ve caused quite a stir with that score. You got the second highest, even higher than Riko. The bets are changing. What do you have to say about that?”

“Well, Kathy,” Nathaniel starts. “Sometimes you can’t buy a high score. You have to prove you have what it takes. Not only that, but when you do something everyone expects, your score won’t be quite as high. You have to do something… unpredictable. And when you’re busy showing off exactly what you did during training…”

Nathaniel pauses, a wicked grin crossing his face. “Well, your score flounders.”

“You only had one point on him. Is that floundering?”

“Kevin’s hand is broken and he got the same score.”

Andrew had to admit, he was rather impressed by the easy comeback. And it was honest. Everyone had heard about Kevin’s hand breaking. Him and Riko had been set as equals, both a challenge. It was a tossup whether the winner would be Kevin or Riko, but after Kevin’s hand had been destroyed, the title was all but handed over to Riko.

To hear him shut down like that, well, it had Andrew’s brows raising.

Interesting.

“What about Andrew? Dobson? A twelve to your eleven, what about that?”

Nathaniel turned his gaze to the camera, that smile crawling back up. Andrew squinted. He definitely looked weak, but he could taste the challenge as it came towards him.

“I suppose we’ll see about that.”

Yes, Andrew thinks. They would be seeing about that.

Chapter Text

Janie Smalls rises from the tube, the sounds around her swimming in her covered ears. Her hood is already up, set that way by the girl who had readied her for their entrance into the arena. It’s cold, she thinks, dumbly.Very, very cold.

The wind is whistling and her skin stings with the feeling of the chill. It was warmer, before she rose. She’s small, and she sways as it carries her.

There are others around her. They look around like she does, taking in the expanse of white surrounding them. They look up, towards the top of the mountain.

Janie’s arm throbs. There’s a tracker in her arm, they’d applied it messily and against her will, but she thinks she understands. It’s their method of keeping up with the tributes. Their way of finding them.

It doesn’t make her feel any better.

She inhales shakily, around the cold and around her nerves. She doesn’t want to be here. There’s nobody watching for her, nobody cheering her on back home. Not even Seth would have her back. The wind blows again, the speakers blare with another number. The countdown, she thinks.

Another howled breath of wind, another exhale, and Janie steps forward, to catch her balance or, perhaps not.

There’s only a cannon shot, and silence.

The snow and the howling winds hide the sound of the cannon shot, but Nathaniel is twitchy despite it. The countdown had almost been over, it could’ve been an accident. Whoever had overstepped could’ve done it, but he can’t quite tell if it was on purpose or not. Suicide is common in these things, he finds.

His skin feels raw. He wishes he had the wool sweater from the Kathy Ferdinand interview beneath his suit, but he doesn’t. Nobody does. It’s warm, at least, he thinks. His face isn’t entirely covered, but there’s fur lining the hood and it’s a warm enough color that any heat that the gamemakers supply will be soaked up.

He doubts his father would be as kind as to give them much sun.

Nathaniel raises his hand, pats his chest. Pinned to the inside of his suit is a fox. Allison had thought herself clever with her comment. She thought him a fox, sly and sneaky. He thinks he agrees, but he’s not sure. He’s not sure of anything.

He looks up the mountain, the shine at the top. He thinks it could be anything. Snow, most likely, but given that everyone was surrounding the structure, well.

It was probably the cornucopia.

He moves his gaze, but he can’t see Jean. The countdown finishes, loudly, but the wind swallows that, too. Nathaniel swallows his panic and runs straight for the mountain. His suit is heavy, he realizes as he starts climbing, but he doesn’t care. He only cares about the burn of his muscles with every push. There’s already fighting, he thinks.

Frustrated yelling, angered hisses, pained grunts. Nathaniel wouldn’t be surprised if most of the bloodbath was comprised of people tumbling from the mountain and painting the snow at the bottom red.

He suppresses a shiver.

He reaches inside himself, telling himself to push. His arms ache, between the tracker injected into him and the constant push and pull of bringing himself to the top. To his left, a mass of black hair slips. He’s not sure how they managed, maybe it was the snow, or maybe it was the lack of good grip.

He just knows that he turns his gaze away before he can watch them reach the ground, or before his own grip gives way.

He pulls himself higher, higher, higher as he listens to the sound of grunting and grumbling, the sound of snow shifting. His teeth chatter and his hands feel frozen already. He glances up, towards the peak of the mountain. He’s close, he thinks. He can see the glint of silver at the top, the entrance of the cornucopia.

A little farther, he thinks.

And then, he’s at the top, pulling himself up. Some of them are already there, the snow stained red from the fights that have likely already taken place. He moves closer to the entrance, sidestepping a girl with a slice across her face. She’s still, and as pale as the snow beneath her.

Nathaniel looks away and enters, cautious. He’s able to swipe some knives from the side before someone else enters. The man seems strong (strong enough, that is), with bulging muscles. He’s larger than Nathaniel too, in size; in height. But Nathaniel is careful. He has the advantage here in the shadows.

He creeps around, quietly, carefully. His footsteps are soundless as he moves closer. Gorilla, he thinks, moves forward, peers around.

Turns his back.

Nathaniel doesn’t waste time stabbing him in it.

The issue there, Nathaniel finds, is that Gorilla had a bit of a shadow, a small friend. She seems nice, but not quite as nice as she could be without his dagger in her chest and her blood on Gorilla’s shirt.

Nathaniel twists the dagger, pulls it from the body, and leaves before he can end up in Gorilla’s grip. He has what he needs, he thinks, especially when he grabs a bag on his way around.

Andrew barely even bothers climbing half way up the mountain. He gets halfway up when he’s able to snag a small bag with enough things to keep him good. For now.

He pulls it over his overly-bulky suit (well, with the cold, he doubts it’s ‘overly-bulky’) and begins to head back down, careful about his trek. He won’t be like the idiot he’d watched tumble down.

He had been close enough to the bottom at that point to hear the fool’s bones cracking.

He reaches the bottom once again, feet leaving prints in the top layer of the flakey white snow. There’s not many people around, since they’re either at the top or dead. Though, he supposes, there could be plenty of people running around by now.

He himself turns to leave the area, before he hears the screaming that is. It sounds distinctly like Riko’s name, if anything. Snow tumbles down the mountain, unsettled by something (or perhaps, someone) tumbling down.

Andrew chances a glance up, dealing with the sight of too-bright grey clouds and glittering snow if only so he can catch a glance of who’s making their way down. He shouldn’t care. He should be leaving, turning his back and headed off towards somewhere—anywhere—other than where everyone else is.

Instead, he’s watching as Kevin Day tumbles his way down a mountain, clutching the arm Andrew had thought he’d already injured as if in pain. He tumbles down, down, down, until he rolls to a stop at Andrew’s feet.

And all Andrew can do is laugh.

“Pathetic,” he says, nudging the fool with the tip of his snow boots. “Did your mentor not teach you how to rock climb? Or was he too busy playing with knives to give you valuable lessons?”

It is, despite what Andrew says, obvious that Kevin managed to get to the top, and into the cornucopia. In fact, if Andrew had to, he’d be willing to guess that Kevin hadn’t fallen on purpose.

“Riko,” Kevin wheezes, proving Andrew correct. He looks up again, looks towards where Kevin had fallen from. He knows the Moreau boy and his partner—Wesninski—were likely with the King. Everyone’s favorite boy. The expected winner.

Andrew grabs Kevin by the collar of his thick coat and drags him up. “I should kill you right now,” he says. “Give me one reason not to.”

Kevin shakes in his grip, from fear or adrenaline Andrew doesn’t know. All he knows is that Kevin is toeing a line that Andrew isn’t willing to move. Toeing a line that Kevin shouldn’t toe.

“I can help you win,” Kevin huffs out. “I’m useless like this- my arm,” he continues, his brows drawn together. “I can’t do much anymore. But you- we’ve been watching you, you know. As soon as you volunteered. As soon as you were in the games. You can beat them all.”

“Who says I need your help to win?” Andrew asks, eyes narrowed, voice impassive.

“You’ve never been in a fight like I have. I’m a career, I was trained to do this. You weren’t. But I can help you. Protect me now, and in the end I’ll help you win.”

Andrew doesn’t have much time to consider it, so he just grits his teeth and drags Kevin along. He doesn’t particularly have anything to lose, anyways.

Who knows, it might be amusing.

Chapter Text

“What the hell, Riko?!”

Nathaniel had seen a lot of fucked up shit in his life. Hell, his life was fucked up shit, but never had he expected Riko to shove Kevin down a fucking mountain. Maybe it was jealousy, maybe it was pent up rage, maybe it was-

Maybe it was everything.

“No,” Riko said, his voice coming eerily close to a growl. Nathaniel edged away for his own well being, not looking forward to being the next one sent down on a happy little skiing trip. Him or Jean. “You don’t get to question this! Unless you want to join him, that is. Is that what you want, Nathaniel? You want to be with Kevin?”

Riko reaches out to swipe at Nathaniel, perhaps grab him by the lapels of his bulky coat, but Nathaniel pulls a dagger on him and bats his hand away. “You’re fucking crazy,” he mutters under his breath. “Trying to get rid of the only people who’d dare to ally you this early in the game?”

Behind him, Jean murmurs something resembling a prayer, too softly for Nathaniel to catch everything over the hard winds. If Riko could hear it, he doesn’t show it, too busy cursing Nathaniel out for his insolence. He manages to grab hold of his collar, but not before Nathaniel can hold his dagger to his neck.

“The only point of you being here is to serve me. Do not mistake this for me considering you of all people a threat,” Riko snarls out, his breath coming out thick and foggy, clear in the wintry weather of the arena. “Four cannon shots so far, Nathaniel. Would you like to make the fifth?”

“Funny you say that,” Nathaniel says, despite the twisting of Riko’s face. Despite the danger he knows he’s in. Riko is a wild animal, his moves unprompted and sure. Unpredictable. Nathaniel can’t dream of taming him, but can he grab him by the muzzle and restrain him if necessary. Just not right now. “I’m the one with the dagger to your neck, no?”

For a moment, Nathaniel really does consider moving it a little closer, pressing a little deeper. Swiping across, watching gentle red blood stream out and coat the snow in a thick layer of blood. Instead, he just plants his feet in the snow and shoves Riko away.

He can’t do anything right now. Jean is still too tight in Riko’s grasp, all things considered. If Nathaniel wants to escape, he’ll have to leave Jean alone, which he isn’t willing to do. Not now.

“Forget it,” Nathaniel chooses to say, plainly; unwilling to become Riko’s next victim, to fall from the mountains. “Kevin’s still alive, there hasn’t been a cannon. I say we leave him and go, he’d only drag us down now.”

Jean remains silent, his spear held in his pale-knuckled grip. He doesn’t respond verbally, his attention held by Riko. Nathaniel doesn’t take offense. He knows. He understands. Leaving Kevin makes his stomach squirm and clench, but letting Riko win, letting Jean die… he isn’t willing to let either of those happen.

“Ah, look who’s learning,” Riko praises, all mocking and sardonic humor. “You’re right. Kevin can sleep with whatever the hell is out there for what I care.” There’s a familiar fury buried under Riko’s words, mixing in with the heavy sound of envy.

Nathaniel turns his back to Jean, but keeps Riko in his percephiaries. From what he can tell, they’re located at the highest mountain, the peak. The cornucopia stands at the highest as well, just behind Riko. There’s snow falling everywhere, landing perfectly in place among other fallen flakes.

Mountains stretch out around them, none quite as tall as the one they’re already occupying. They spread out far enough that Nathaniel has trouble seeing any farther than the first spread, though he’s sure that the weather and thick snow is partially to blame for his obscured view.

“Hope you’ve warmed up a bit,” Nathaniel says snidely, his hands still chilly from the climb up. His body aches just from looking out across the snowy expanse, knowing he’ll be working his way back up. “Seems we’ve got a bit more climbing to do.”

“Marvelous,” Jean sniffs, haughty and indignant. “At least we know that anyone who’s dumb enough to remove their coats will die before we come across them.”

“That’s so reassuring,” Nathaniel bickers, already headed off. He’s already dreading the move down, but knowing he’ll have to climb more makes him want to curl up and sleep forever. Too bad he actually has plans, which include keeping Jean alive. “Maybe the animals out there will eat them, too. So we don’t have to see them.”

Nathaniel barely notices that Riko passes him, too busy laughing at Jean’s voice as he informs Nathaniel that he’ll be the next one going down the mountain head first.

“Maybe it’ll finally knock your brain back into place,” Jean mutters. “Or at least knock the rocks replacing it out.”

“You wish!”

“What the fuck is he doing here?”

Out of anyone, Andrew figures he should’ve at least expected that kind of responses from Aaron. He’s crass, rude, and rough around the edges in a way that Andrew could’ve been, but isn’t.

“Serving his time as tribute, dear brother mine,” Andrew shoots back. “Same as you, same as me.”

“He’s a fucking career, you gonna let him kill us this early?”

“Astute observation,” he mocks, kicking snow towards his clone for the amusement of seeing him scowl. Interesting. “Funny thing is, little number two here took a nice big fall down the mountain. Seems the king got tired of his pawn. But don’t worry, Kevin here’s a bit banged up, but he’s here to help.”

Aaron seems to struggle with his temper for a good minute, cheeks flaring red. Andrew thinks he might like to be that angry, to have some sort of heat run through his body for a single moment. Too bad for him. Too bad, too bad.

“He’s a fucking cripple!” Aaron finally snaps, gesturing to Kevin’s arm. Everyone had heard the story of how the number two to the King had been injured, had his arm crushed; his talents destroyed. The rumors spread, but the gossip about who they thought would win—Kevin or Riko—died.

“I don’t want to hear it fish boy,” Kevin spit, face contorting with rage. He takes a step forward, his large boot leaving an imprint in the snow. He reaches out to grab at Aaron, catching him by the collar of his coat and heaving him forward. “I got a ten despite my former injuries.”

Kevin gives Aaron a good shake before Andrew can intervene, gripping the wrist of the arm that had once been crushed. He gives it a nice squeeze, enough to warn Kevin of what he’s willing to do if he doesn’t let go.

Luckily for Kevin, he gets the hint, releasing Aaron with little more than a hearty shove and a hint of a grunt. Aaron continues to seethe, but Andrew can’t find it within him to care.

“Nice to see everyone’s getting along,” Andrew says, fake enthusiasm dripping from his voice. “Erik, want to join in on the festivities?” He turns to the taller, older man. When Andrew had first approached the pair of them, he had been a bit apprehensive, at the least.

What Andrew has gathered thus far about the man is that he’s eager to go back home, back to Nicky (Andrew’s supposed Cousin) and his two dogs. He’s a fisherman, and he actually enjoys spending his days outside. All in all, he looks exactly as he is.

“I think I’m good,” Erik says, a hint of a smile quirking his lips up at the ends. There are smile lines on his face, which makes Andrew think that this is probably the smallest smile he’s ever flashed anyone, not that Andrew can really blame him.

Who really wanted to play in the hunger games? Erik had volunteered, sure, but so had many of the others, Andrew sincerely doubted that many people had volunteered out of a desire to kill and win.

Well, Riko aside.

“If we’re done here,” Kevin interrupts. “We’ve got a good amount of rations, so we should be good long enough to find other food sources if we’re careful with how much we eat. We’ll have to find a water source soon enough, but for now this is fine. Once we’re through the mountains we should have a better chance of finding anything worthwhile.”

Andrew is half tempted to ask Kevin about why they can’t just eat the snow, but figures it’s in his own best interest to not. From what he’s gathered, Aaron’s a bit of a medial nerd, Erik isn’t dumb, and Kevin’s a health freak. If anything, he would immediately be painted as the resident idiot.

He’s not interested in that.

Kevin quickly takes over the group when he realizes that Andrew won’t be. Andrew simply chooses to follow behind, taking up the end of their conga-line of death. No matter how far they go around the arena, no matter how long they plan, only one of them can make it out. The group of merrymen and musketeers will be split up. Andrew doesn’t particularly believe he’ll be around that long, but who can tell?

At the head of the group, Kevin is rambling on about something unimportant. Andrew can only hear bits and pieces over the sound of the winds, but what little he can hear has him praising the fact that he’s not part of the conversation. He thinks he might like hearing about how he needs to get stronger, fight more.

Aaron’s looking a healthy shade of red right now, after all.

“Watch it, Kevin,” Andrew calls out, over the sound of the wind and over the sound of everything else so that the bastard can hear him. “I’d hate for you to take another trip down the mountain. I don’t think any of us are willing to run down and save you.”

Andrew can’t quite make out Kevin’s expression, or hear any of the sounds he makes in return, but he does get the pleasant joy of watching him stomp off.

They manage to find some semblance of a path between some of the mountains, a pseudo valley that they’re careful to trek through. It saves them from having to climb again, and again, and again, but it’s louder in the inbetween. Whether it’s the wind or something other, Andrew can’t tell, but he does know he doesn’t particularly enjoy the sounds.

“Christ,” Aaron says beneath his breath as he stumbles a bit, just loud enough for Andrew to catch the sound.

“I don’t think he’s going to help you much,” Andrew informs his clone, just as Erik chooses to inform them that their little journey is a bit ‘unpleasant’.

As if they didn’t all have the same thought.

Chapter Text

They manage to clear at least three of the mountains before Nathaniel realizes it—they’re being followed. He pauses for a breath, one second; a heartbeat. He can still hear the sounds of Jean and RIko, snow crunching underneath their boots.

The only warning Nathaniel gets past that is a low growl and a faint hiss, the sound of paws against the snow that are only slightly different than the sound of his companions walking.

“Jean,” Nathaniel starts, and then they attack. Their fur is sleek, riddled with black spots. Their paws are large, their claws sharp. Nathaniel barely even gets a chance to reach for one of his daggers before they’re upon him. He slices the first across the neck with ease, his weapon quickly becoming slick and coated with blood, much like the ground beneath him.

He glances up while he gets a chance, watching as Jean drives his spear through the middle of another. He can hear the yowl of a leopard, probably one that had gone straight for Riko rather than Jean or Nathaniel.

“We need to go!” Nathaniel yells, hoping to be heard over the wind and over the cries of wounded animals. He moves forward while he can, and gets swiped in the leg for his troubles. At that point, he’s more than happy to return the favor with a little more vigor.

It doesn’t take him long to catch up with Jean, even if it means that his partner ends up with the pointy end of his weapon in another leopard, one that Nathaniel hadn’t noticed in his haste.

“Mother fucker,” Nathaniel hisses under his breath, stumbling forward as they attempt to fight through the snow, wind, and the knowledge of beasts within the grounds. He chances another glance behind himself for what it’s worth, double and triple checking that the leopards disappeared. It wasn’t that long of a battle, or that hard to escape, but the fear of a repeat was enough to have Nathaniel on edge.

The leopards were white, obviously hard to see within all the snow. It was their territory, and their climate. Any sort of battle would obviously put them in worse shape than the other way around.

Nathaniel glances back once more, before turning his head forward. “Should we take one with us?” He questions, raising an eyebrow. “The coats can give us some warmth hopefully, and there’s plenty of meat here to last us a while.”

Though Jean is the first to shake his head, Riko’s the one to speak. “Not unless there’s room for an entire leopard in that bag of yours.”

As it is, Nathaniel’s bag is pretty heavy on its own, stocked to the brim with necessary items. They could benefit to taking some of the meat, but not the entirety. And it isn’t as if they have anything to store the meat in.

“I guess not then,” Nathaniel mutters, “We’ll probably run into something else later, at the least.”

“Good,” Jean says around a mouthful of cold air, chin pointing up the light grey, cloudy sky. He rolls his shoulders, one of which are wounded from a wolf bite that he’s likely interested in checking out. “Then let’s get out of here before they decide they want more.”

“Is this what Hell looks like?” Nathaniel asks while they’re looking over the rest of the mountains. They’re quite high up, but not high up enough that they can see flat land. The sun is crawling low, drowning in the clouds at a point that they can just barely see it.

There’s snow everywhere, which is a given, as it’s still snowing. The clouds above are weeping icy tears that drizzle down and collect in Nathaniel’s frozen hair. The air is overly thin, making it harder to breathe through the fabric of his coat. He has it pulled up over his mouth and nose to warm him, but he’s not sure it’s doing much good.

From the looks of it, they’re going nowhere.

“No,” Jean sniffs, his thin lips pressing together. “You’d recognize it. We can only wish for Hell while up here.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Nathaniel mutters between chattering teeth. “I can send you there if you really miss it that much.”

“Boys,” Riko interrupts, despite their ages being too close for distinction between man and boy. If Nathaniel had ever called Riko a boy, he never would have made it into the arena.

Shivering in the cold, he thinks, for a moment, that he should’ve done that. Instead, he raises a mental glass to himself for not acknowledging Riko. His temper sparks like the wires of the technology district, but he can keep it under control.

For now.

He knows, that at some point during the games, Riko will say something. Riko will push his buttons and Nathaniel will try feeding him to the wolves himself, and then he will die, either due to success and his father’s will, or due to Riko’s vitriolic attempts at revenge that will follow.

He keeps his thoughts to himself for now, and says instead, “It’s only going to get colder. We should get lower and find somewhere to set up camp.”

Riko looks to him, obviously annoyed at being cut off before he could say something, but follows his lead. “Fine.”

As Nathaniel starts heading down, careful to keep from sliding, he can hear Jean muttering from behind him. Maybe it’s a prayer, or a curse, or anything else. He can’t be sure, so he lets the wind bury the words and hopes they won’t be his last.

“So walk me through this again. How exactly is a cripple going to help any of us win? And how the fuck do we know he’s not just going to kill us in our sleep and crawl right back to Riko Whatever-his-name-is tonight? Or any night for that matter?”

While Aaron’s worries are valid, Andrew has grown tired of them. Every five minutes he’s casting annoyed glares in the taller man’s direction, not even bothering to hide his growing contempt. Andrew would find it amusing, but the time for amusement has past and now Andrew’s just irritated.

“Well, brother mine,” Andrew starts again, having already explained this before, “I’m not sure! For all you know, I could also kill you in your sleep and abandon you for the careers. So could you. I guess we’ll just have to find out.” He smiles, all teeth, pausing in his steps to look back at him. It’s dark now, the sky dark and cloudy. There are no stars to be seen, and it’s growing increasingly hard to see their own footsteps in the white snow.

“Have some faith, won’t you?”

“Thought you said God couldn’t-” Aaron starts, a scowl marring his twisted face. Andrew knows he was going to say more, but Erik (oh, Erik) cuts him off before he can say more and before Andrew can do little more than laugh in his face.

“Maybe we should break for the night,” Erik suggests, both a distraction from the growing animosity and an order phrased as a kind offer of wisdom. He sets his bag down with all the gentleness a giant can muster, a dare for one of the others among their group to object (not that they would). “Two of us can keep watch at a time, while the rest sleep. Switch if you start falling asleep.”

There’s a terse look shared between the group of them, but they all shrug it off and quietly agree to listen. Obedience isn’t written into the DNA of any of them, not really, but something about the stakes seems to make them all a bit more willing to sit down and rest for the night.

Andrew drops his own bag so he can settle beside it. It takes him about two seconds to delve into it and retrieve a small package of crackers buried in the bottom. “I’ll take first shift.”

Nobody seems interested in fighting with Andrew’s steel will and resolve, but there’s a moment when Erik opens his mouth, a breath of air escaping him, before Aaron cuts into whatever he was going to say. “I will, too.”

Though Andrew can’t see it, the pair share a look behind his back. Aaron’s gaze is full of challenge and fire, a mirror of his brother’s, though neither of the pair would look closely enough to notice (or even admit such).

“Okay,” Erik says, backing away and turning to his bag. He’s unwilling to argue against Aaron, especially since he’s known him for years now. Aaron is stubborn and hardheaded as Andrew seems, so there’s really no point. “Alright. Wake me up if you start falling asleep.”

“Plan on leaving?” Andrew asks once the snow has settled alongside their group. The skies have calmed, heavy flurries passing into something more gentle. The snow, too, has chosen to sleep for the night. “As you pointed out, now would be a good time to do it.”

“I wouldn’t get very far,” Aaron remarks over the sound of shuffling bags and thick coats from behind them. Andrew knows if he were alongside them he’d be just as restless, too worried over the others and too—not afraid, but something similar.

Andrew blows out a hot breath, one that reminds him of coal dust and cigarette smoke, a cool wisp of air blowing up into the sky and curling delicately. “Who knows, maybe you’ll find the borders of this hell hole. Run clean into it.”

Aaron’s only response is a small huff of laughter that Andrew can feel from his place, his shoulder pressed into Aaron’s. Andrew doesn’t particularly care for the touch, but with layers of clothes between them, he’s happy for the hint of warmth.

Silence lapses between the twins as they remain sitting like gargoyles, the Capitol anthem playing and the names and faces of those already lost to the games flashing over the clouded sky, unfazed by the climate and weather.

Andrew grits his teeth and strengthens his resolve.

One of them will win, and he’ll die to ensure it.

Chapter Text

They rise with the dawn and make it as far as the treeline before the first cannon shot sounds. Nathaniel thinks that, before, there had been the sound of screams and trembling tree branches, but he hadn’t been sure then. He was sure now.

Riko fails to pause, continuing forward as if no sound had been made; the death among the remaining tributes more of something to celebrate for him than anything else. Nathaniel and Jean share a look between them, a silent bit of conversation going something along the lines of ‘shit’s fucked’ and ‘I know’.

The only thing that keeps Nathaniel and Jean tethered to Riko right now is the fact that they know turning their back while there’s so many other tributes will only lead to their own downfall. Otherwise, they’d be turning around and letting the other man head straight into the trees and join the screams echoing within.

The forest they’re heading straight into is coated in dense fog, making it hard to see and travel forward without a flashlight. Nathaniel is inclined to believe whoever it was that set up the bags purposefully left such a tool out. Each breath in feels like citrus juice on an open cut within his throat. His skin itches and tingles, and from the heavy breath that Jean releases, he’s willing to bet that Jean feels it, too.

Nathaniel’s stomach trembles and shakes with something akin to fear and anxiety, a promise for something that none of them is going to enjoy. He stumbles over his own foot, coming to a stop against Jean’s frozen back. He opens his mouth to speak, but Jean lifts a halting hand, circling a finger to gesture around him.

Even Riko has stopped, and a quick glance around himself has him understanding why. Bears with three heads and white tigers with blue eyes, missing stripes and an additional pair of antlers atop their head circle them like predators do their prey.

Nathaniel palms his knives and wonders how well his father and Lola taught him. When the first tiger leaps and snarls, he supposes he’ll find out. In the end, there’s only one outcome: blood-coated snow and death.

Nathaniel is the first to escape the fog, with Riko and Jean piling along after with snarling animals hot on their heels. There’s more now than there had been originally, though the numbers had dwindled at some point during their fight. As he goes stumbling, tripping over something in the snow, he notices them: footprints.

He scrambles onto his back and notices exactly what he’s tripped over just as the second cannon shot of the day goes off and a garbled cry comes from his left.

“Matt!”

Just as the animals recede back into the trees, disappearing through the crisp and presumably problematic fog, a woman with cropped dark hair and skin a few shades lighter—though still dark enough to be called dark—comes stumbling into view.

Danielle Wilds.

Nathaniel glances back at the disfigured body. Deep brown skin coated in blood, still and lifeless in the snow. He can only assume that the man—the corpse—before him belongs—belonged—to none other than Matt Boyd. District Seven’s pride and joy; tall enough to compare to a growing sapling and strong enough to uproot one.

And now he is dead with chunks of flesh ripped from his bones and only a cannon shot left to remember him by.

All Nathaniel can think is better him than me.

He scrambles up and out of Wilds’ path before she can get her bloody hands on him, grabbing at Jean and heading back towards the mountains and away from the forest. They leave Riko to hiss and claw with the tigers and fish with the bears and put as much distance between themselves and him as possible.

There’s a third cannon shot before night falls and the snow stills, and the reason why looks Andrew and the rest of his pack in the face as they’re traveling between mountains. Covered in a blanket of snow freshly-fallen is Gorden, a shaky addict with no pills or morphine to satiate his needs.

Of all the deaths in the arena thus far, Andrew is willing to bet that Gordon’s was the cleanest. Nobody would be mourning for him. He was an expense easily lost, a couple copper coins compared to gold and diamond.

Beside him is a bag that he probably snagged from the base of the first mountain before lumbering off, and on his back remains his thick coat. Andrew stares down at him for a good five seconds before starting to take both.

He throws the half-full bag behind him without any real direction, but he makes clear who it’s for. “Aaron, you can take that. And we can use this coat as a blanket.”

Resting has looked a lot like penguins in the winter for the group, with all the close-cuddling and warmth-borrowing, and while Andrew is desperate for the heat of a coal mine rather than the cool, crisp air of the arena, he isn’t entirely into the idea of pressing close to the others.

He stands again, dusting snow from his thick, black clothes and hiking his bag back up his shoulders. Erik shovels a handful of snow over Gordon’s body before they move on, quiet in the cold.

“We should stop here for a bit,” Kevin announces after what feels like an hour’s worth of traveling. None of them can be quite sure with the sky covered and no watches between them. “I think we’re close to something, so we should take a break while we can and maybe try and find something to eat. Crackers and meat sticks are only so useful.”

Andrew, who took up the rear after their continued travels, moves closer to the group of them like a general ready for war. His shoulders are squared and ready for something—anything. But his face is impassive and calm. “You can hunt, and take Erik with you,” he ‘suggests’, “Aaron and I can watch our shit.”

There’s a moment of silence, a tense pause and a lack of eagerness to separate. A fear of loss and another cannon shot. Kevin is the first to break it, a solemn nod. Erik and Aaron share looks of discontent, but go along with the plan nonetheless.

They have plenty to lose, but Kevin has nothing. He’s already lost it all.

“Don’t die,” Aaron mutters unhelpfully under his breath as the pair disappear.

Andrew just shrugs and says, “I don’t think that’ll help them.”

“No,” his clone says, shaking his head. “It probably won’t. But it’s worth the thought, I guess.”

Chapter Text

“He’s going to kill us,” Jean hisses under his breath, between panting breaths and shivers. “He’s going to find us and kill us for this.”

“Shut up,” Nathaniel mutters back. “I won’t let him. He’ll die first, without protection. We can—you can win.”

Nathaniel isn’t delusional. He knows that no matter what happens to him within the arena, if he manages to get out, it won’t be for long. His father will see to it that he doesn’t leave. His father will see to it that if he does, it’ll be to walk into his open grip and his cleaver.

He won’t win, but Jean will. He has to. Nathaniel would slaughter and stab everyone in the arena to ensure it, from Riko Moriyama to Kevin day all the way to fucking Andrew Dobson, because Kevin may be close to him and Riko might’ve held his leash, but Jean Moreau is the closest thing to family Nathaniel has.

“You’re so stupid.” There’s a level of care in the way Jean says it that lets Nathaniel know he doesn’t mean it completely. A fond saying to let Nathaniel know that Jean doesn’t intend on allowing Nathaniel to die either, as if he has a choice. “We need water, devil.”

“And you need to rest,” Nathaniel adds on. He can carry the taller man’s weight, but he, too, is tired. He can feel the press and ache of bones on bones and wonders how long they can carry on before they collapse and melt together for Riko to find.

They’re still on the outskirts of the forest, the fog tickling their ears with the closeness. If Nathaniel closes his eyes, he thinks he can feel the breath of one of three bear heads on the back of his neck, preparing to clamp closed around his neck.

He thinks, if not for Jean, he would’ve died back there. His unfinished business would’ve laid to rest around him like drops of blood and forgotten responsibilities. He doesn’t care for the thought.

Looking to the fog, he closes his eyes and wills himself to forget. It hasn’t even been an hour, he thinks, and yet here he is, contemplating heading back in. Riko won’t search for them there, he knows, but he knows what lurks there now. He knows what belongs. What calls the fog and the forest their home.

But they need rest, and they need an escape from their biggest competitor: Riko. They need a moment to catch their breath and find some water—a lake, a spring, something that isn’t frozen snow.

Nathaniel latches onto the sleeve of Jean’s suit and they head into the fog again, only praying they won’t be swallowed whole by the unnatural inhabitants within.

“I think there’s a clearing up ahead,” Erik comments over his shoulder to Kevin. Kevin, who is concentrating on unmoving snow in hopes of a quiver or a single hint of movement that won’t come.

“That might be a bad idea,” the former career idly responds, though he doesn’t even look to see what the other man sees. A large opening with mountains on their end but trees all around. Branches hang down, overwhelmed by heavy ice and snow. Pawprints litter the ground, skittering from one side to the other in Erik’s vision.

Erik holds back a smart retort that he knows Nicky would appreciate and simply rolls his eyes. “It might be our only idea,” he says instead of whatever was on the tip of his tongue. “There’s obviously things here. I think if we’re quiet enough, they’ll come out.”

Kevin finally lowers his bow. His hand cramps and his arm aches in protest of holding it up any longer. He turns to face Erik, ready to tell him exactly how many problems could arise through them daring to step into an open clearing, but he loses his train of thought at the sight.

He’s tired of mountains.

“Fine.”

Kevin chooses to skirt the edges of the clearing, touching his palm to tree bark. There have been trees on the mountains, small and wilted, limbs broken off from heavy snow and sleet. These trees are more alive despite the weather, healthier than the others. They are obviously dead from wintertime, but they stand a chance at rejuvenation, should spring come to the arena.

Fog surrounds the branches of the tree he touches, something within the forest growls, and he hears Erik scream from behind him.

Riko watches them leave, clinging to each other like a babies to their favorite toys. He watches them run from him, scared and afraid, and he knows his power. He knows he can make it through without them, because he has to. His fists shake from anger and the cold, a combination that he feels will make him deadly when paired with the knives in his hand.

He doesn’t take kindly to being abandoned, to being left behind like a deformed and mistreated pup, the runt of the litter. He doesn’t take kindly to being made a fool of, to being left behind where the cameras can see.

A jovial tune whistles through the air and he looks up, watching a silver parachute glide through the air to land at his feet, denting the snow with it’s graceful landing. It’s a wonder it didn’t get caught by the winds and get carried elsewhere.

He counts his blessings and opens it. There’s a balm for his gaping wounds, something he hadn’t thought of in his haste to feel anger. He hasn’t felt much of anything, numbed by the freezing winds and chilly anger that steals him away in the wake of being tossed aside.

There’s a note alongside the gift, a small note from his mentor.

They will get what is coming for them. - T.

The anger doesn’t fade. It sparks and grows like a flame, hot and angry and enough to burn the entire arena to the ground, despite the snow.

He will leave them like they left him, injured and bleeding and shaken. The difference will be that they will not be alive to feel the anger that he felt.

They will not live to feel anything once he’s done with them.

He crumbles the note in his fist and startles at the sound of footsteps behind him, coming from a valley between the mountains he hadn’t quite noticed while fleeing the mutations.

“You look angry,” Drake Spear says to Riko Moriyama. “And like you could use an ally. Am I right?”

Riko doesn’t need Kevin, Nathaniel or Jean anyways.

Chapter Text

Nathaniel finds himself leaving Jean halfway through the forest to look for water on his own. The fog is thick and hard to see through, and Jean was injured badly enough in the battle earlier to warrant him not being able to travel much further.

While Nathaniel’s shoulders hurt to move or roll, his legs remain mostly in-tact and far from badly injured, so he takes it upon himself to continue his hunt.

He knows Jean is strong enough to take care of himself, to fend off anyone who attempts to attack him while he’s gone, but still he feels his skin itch and his stomach tighten in fear or anxiety or something else.

He passes by a girl too weak to reach for his ankle, her skin ripped and red. Her coat is in pieces around her, torn to shreds and wrapped around her skin like bandage. She’s easy to see in the snow, her hair red and her eyes green and glassy.

He barely spares her a glance. He knows she might live today, and she might live tomorrow, but there will be a cannon shot and her name in the sky one of these nights. He won’t save her, and he won’t bother trying to. Not when Jean is in the forest too, just like her.

The deeper he goes the looser he feels. He thinks it might be the fog clearing, since he can actually see. His skin doesn’t itch quite as much and his path is much easier to make out. He’s secretly glad, and he wishes he had dragged Jean along with him.

He knows Jean couldn’t have made the trek.

It’s in the middle of the forest that he finds it, an open body of water with cracked ice along the sides. There’s fading footprints in the snow, and Nathaniel knows why. There had been screams echoing from here earlier in the day. If he had to guess, he’d say someone had stepped on ice too thin to carry their weight.

He steps up to the hole, careful on his feet. He knows there’s ice and he knows there’s snow, but he knows not where one ends and one begins. It’s too hard to tell, and he doesn’t want to be the next to take a swim.

He pulls the empty canteen from his bag as he approaches the hole. His plan includes dipping his hand in, filling it up as quickly as he can, and getting the fuck back to Jean as soon as possible.

Instead, he gets a glance into the water and realizes just what lurks beneath the surface. It seems the water goes much deeper than anyone else would’ve expected. Large spiders crawl through the water quicker than the tiny fish. Large walruses open their gaping mouths and swallow other animals whole without thought.

Nathaniel doesn’t want to tempt the fates, but he will for Jean.

He lowers his hand and disrupts the surface. Five seconds is all it takes to fill it up, and five seconds is all it takes for the animals to realize he’s there.

He backs away before they start to care and breathes out a sigh of relief. He heads straight for Jean.

Kevin doesn’t recognize him by first name, but he knows he’s from district eight. In fact, he knows his partner is, too. What he doesn’t know is why Erik attacked them. All they came here for was to hunt, and this is not what Kevin had in mind when he suggested it.

Kevin lifts his bow before he can even consider his actions, shooting straight for Lakes at the same time Beckstein drives his sword between Erik’s ribs. Kevin had promised to help Andrew win, to help Andrew survive, but still he feels the world slow down around him.

He shoots another arrow straight for Beckstein, which misses. It does give him enough time to pull one straight from the quiver and take him by surprise. Kevin doesn’t think twice before stabbing at the other man with his nondominant hand.

He doesn’t care, he doesn’t care, he doesn’t care.

Part of being a career is accepting death. Being a merciless killer is part of the resume, part of something learned. He has to kill, he has to shed blood, he has to win. But losing allies, losing—friends—doesn’t seem all that easy.

It seems even harder to have to explain it to the ones waiting for him, the pair of stone-faced blondes.

Even when the three cannon shots finally ring out, he doesn’t leave. He just needs a minute. Or two.

Nathaniel finds Jean, but not as he left him. He’s convulsing, his skin breaking and tearing. Fog surrounds him like the trees, pulled in by his rapid breathing. His eyes are misty and clouded, unseeing. Nathaniel clutches his bag in one hand and the canteen in the others, watching his friend—his only family—shiver unnaturally in the snow as his skin blisters.

“It’s-it’s the fo-fog,” Jean mutters out, unsteady but clear in his words. Nathaniel swears he can hear his teeth gritting as he watches Jean fight for control and lose. “The animals- it’s-”

It hurts. Nathaniel’s promise, unspoken but made, shatters like the ice on the lake. It submerges itself in the truth of the situation, the fog and the fucked up animals. He drops to his knees in front of Jean and reaches for him, unsure.

“Don’t,” Jean wheezes, jerking away. His fists clench and his face twists, skin breaking apart and gaping. Holes open in his head and antlers start rising. Fur breaks from his hands and his nose shrinks back. “Don’t watch. Just- Just kill me.”

“Jean-”

“Do it!” He commands, grabbing at Nathaniel’s suit. He reaches for his shoulder, where his bag’s strap rests. His bag, which has his knives. Nathaniel knows what he wants. He’s not sure he can do it.

“Jean-” he tries again.

“Do it, Nathaniel,” Jean half says, half growls. His voice is raspy and raw. “Do it and get the fuck away from the forest. Do it, do it, do it-”

Nathaniel’s bag slips from his shoulder without him realizing. He reaches for his knives without realizing. He holds it to Jean’s neck, a messy but quick death. He closes his eyes and pretends he’s with Lola.

He isn’t killing Jean.

“Do it,” Jean whispers again. And he does.

Kevin returns to Andrew and Aaron alone with blood on his hands. It is Aaron who wraps his hands around Kevin’s throat after shoving him to the ground, demanding to know where Erik went. He knew he was no good, he says. He knew he would betray them, he says.

But Andrew drags his clone off and demands answers where Aaron filled in the blanks on his own.

“There’s a clearing,” Kevin explains between breaths, his own hands wrapped around his bruising throat. “Not too far from here, Erik wanted to explore it. There’s footprints everywhere. From animals, too. Thought we’d be able to catch something. We went for it.”

He can see how inviting it was. So large and open, snow glittering despite the lack of sun. Distance. Animal prints coating the ground, something foreign after days without. Trees and fog and nature, so distracting.

“I was skirting the edges, it was a really large clearing and—” he pauses, the image captured in his mind. The scream, the way he froze. The way he was too late. “Erik screamed. I don’t know if he attacked first or if the other two did but— I went for the wrong person too late.”

Andrew turns away from him without a word, and Aaron simply mulls over Kevin’s words from his place. Kevin can see the grief on his face, he doesn’t need to hear a word. “I’m sorry,” he says, even though he knows it doesn’t help.

It never does.

Chapter Text

The night comes, the night goes. He walks through it alone, ignoring the Capitol’s anthem and the names above. He knows whose faces will be shown, and he doesn’t care to see Jean’s.

He wonders for a moment if Andrew, the only threat he could make out of the games, was still alive, or if he misjudged him. He still doesn’t look. He doesn’t care enough to.

In the end, whoever wins, wins. It won’t be Nathaniel. It won’t be Jean.

If he’s lucky, it’ll be Kevin. But knowing him, it’ll probably be Riko, the last person he wants to win now. Not that he ever wanted Riko to win in the first place. If Nathaniel is honest with himself, he should’ve stabbed Riko before he and Jean took off, the perfect opportunity.

Instead, he’s still running even in the arena. Running from something he can’t quite run from—the inevitable. As day breaks, the snow starts up again and the temperature drops once more. The clouds remain in place, angry and grey. Nathaniel keeps walking.

He hears a cannon shot and thinks of the red-haired girl and green eyes, district five’s powerhouse. He thinks of her shivering and broken and swears that when he dies, he won’t die like that. He’d bury himself in the mountains he walks between before he’d let himself go like her.

Kevin is attempting to discuss the remaining tributes when he finds them. Andrew is only vaguely surprised, and it’s not due to his presence, but the lack of Riko’s. The knife-sharp, red-haired left hand of Riko Moriyama, the one who didn’t protect Kevin, or Jean if last night’s tributes said anything.

Andrew twirls a knife in his hand, silent but daring. He’d throw it if he didn’t think Wesninski was able to catch it.

“Why hello there, little fox,” Andrew greets him, more sarcastic than anything else. “What brings you to our humble abode? Isn’t it chilly?”

“Nathaniel-” Kevin cuts in, which is odd to Andrew.

“Oh,” Nathaniel says, as if he doesn’t even realize what he’s wandered into. As if he’s a spirit lost, dragging his body from one part of the arena to the next with no real destination and no real plan to survive.

Interesting.

“You seem lost, little fox,” Andrew continues as if Kevin and Nathaniel hadn’t spoken. “Got something up your sleeves? You here to kill us?”

“No,” Nathaniel says, and for once Andrew can tell it isn’t a lie.

Interesting, again.

“Give me a reason not to kill you,” Andrew says instead. He’s already lost Erik, though the wound is deeper for Aaron than it is for him. He hadn’t known Erik long, but he was family to Aaron. He can see it in his eyes when he actually meets Andrew’s.

“I don’t have one.”

“Ah, looking to join the club I see,” Andrew says blandly, patting the snow next to him. “C’mon now, I’ll give you one if you’re so eager to die. We’ve got a recently emptied seat at the table just for you. But no eating the lambs, little fox!”

Nathaniel peeks at him from the corner of his eyes as he approaches. “You’re deranged.”

“Tell me about it,” Andrew says with a shrug. “Where’s your shadow?”

Andrew doesn’t need a reply, the way Nathaniel closes himself off at the question is answer enough.

“You know Riko’s not just going to take this lying down,” Kevin unhelpfully supplies Nathaniel the moment the twins are far enough away to offer them even a semblance of privacy.

“I don’t care,” Nathaniel mutters under his breath. “It’s not like I’m going to make it out of here alive, anyways.”

“Me either,” Kevin says. His eyes are on his arm, twice injured and never once correctly healed. He knows he won’t be the one to escape, won’t be the one to crawl to the top and take the crown from Riko’s head like he once wanted. “I just don’t want to lose to him.”

“I don’t care how I die,” Nathaniel responds, his voice blank. He could die by Kevin’s arrow, or he could put a blade to his own throat. “I just don’t want to die helplessly.”

From the looks of it, Dobson is keeping Minyard on a leash. Nathaniel never noticed how close the pair were during the training sessions, but now it’s painfully obvious. Now it’s clear that if Dobson gets his way, it’ll be Minyard making it out.

And, from the looks of it, that’s how it’ll be.

Kevin and Nathaniel both know their only way out of the arena is through death, but neither of them were willing to let Riko make it out any other way. The careers all share the same fate, a fate of blood in the snow and lives forfeit.

That’s what they signed up for by volunteering.

Chapter Text

Three days pass without a single cannon shot. Nathaniel remains closer to Andrew than Kevin or Aaron. It’s not that he doesn’t like Kevin, but there’s something promising about Andrew. Something that tells him that he won’t die by his blade, not while he’s acting as protector.

Nathaniel actually does care for Kevin in a way. Kevin isn’t cruel like Riko, he’s more mean with his words but in an unintentional way.

Aaron is just an asshole, which Nathaniel can appreciate to an extent. Anywhere else, he thinks he might actually be able to let it grow on him. Here, in the arena, he doesn’t care. He knows Aaron will win. He knows because that’s what he’s fighting for. He knows because two careers and Andrew Dobson will it so.

He doesn’t think that Aaron will want their deaths on his conscience like he has Klose’s. He has the look of a kicked puppy. Andrew says that he’ll probably feel better once he’s home with his girlfriend.

Nathaniel can’t weigh in on that.

They move often, because Kevin gets restless and itchy in one place, too afraid of Riko or the others catching up to them. Andrew seems antsy too at times, when he glances over his shoulder or twitches in his sleep.

Nathaniel recognizes the signs of disturbed slumber and nightmares.

He never touches Andrew, but he does crunch the snow by his head a little too loudly to jolt him awake. He thinks the way Andrew punches the air might be funny if he didn’t wake the same way.

They stay up on watch together, quiet and cold. They never sit scrunched together like Kevin and Aaron do, but they’re close enough for the warmth to sink in. Andrew doesn’t complain, and neither does Nathaniel.

Some nights they seem closer than others.

Kevin is, once again, discussing the remaining tributes when the announcement blares overhead. Five days of no deaths, of lying in wait and hoping nobody is doing the same, and it seems the gamemakers have gotten antsy and impatient.

In the clearing, the bloody clearing where the three bodies had lied when Kevin left, the are scattering necessities. Food, water, clothes. Memoirs and memorabilia. Medicine.

And, to top it all off, warmth. The only reason any of them consider going is for the warmth, for the feeling to return to their hands and feet. For a moment’s reprieve from the blistering chill of the arena.

Oddly enough, Kevin is the only one to go. He gives them no real reason why, but Nathaniel knows him well enough to guess why. Despite his haughty nature, he’s caring and does actually have family at home. That, and Kevin has always been a dreamer.

Nathaniel is pretty sure that Kevin thinks they’ll have something to help his arm there. He shares this information with Andrew who scoffs at the idea, but agrees.

Neither of them think Kevin will be right.

There are four deaths at the event. The sun shines down on the clearing and warmth settles on the skin of everyone who comes. The center is empty of people, but there are plenty of bags. Numbers are embroidered on the front pouch, proudly bearing the district number it should belong to.

Kevin eyes the district one bag. He considers running for it when someone else with the same idea does first. He recognizes her, Dan. Her district mate stood a good chance at winning, but something caught him early on.

She managed to get along fast enough to get to her bag, but she didn’t get any further before another girl—Kevin doesn’t recognize her district, but he thinks she’s Alvarez—is tackling her. It’s a brawl from there.

Kevin takes the distraction as what it is and rushes for his own bag. Nobody stops him. He’s able to grab what he wants from the inside, willing to leave the rest for Riko, and get back to the treeline before it happens.

He’s grabbed from behind by someone he doesn’t recognize. They sound familiar, probably from the reaping, but he can’t place the sound. It’s not Riko, since he’s approaching slowly from in front of him. Kevin can’t say he recognizes him anymore.

“You should’ve died when I pushed you down that mountain,” is all Riko says before he’s reaching forward to stab. Kevin just braces himself, closes his eyes and waits, but nothing comes.

Knox, the blonde haired boy from nine, golden skinned and gorgeous despite the location, is wrestling an armed Riko to the ground and losing.

He’s the third cannon shot of the day, and it happens so quickly Kevin can’t even try wriggling from the grip holding him before it’s over. He fights after, as Riko stands and brushes the snow from his clothes.

He manages to get free, to turn away and run, and he gets a knife to his back for his efforts.

The fourth cannon shot is for him.

Andrew, Nathaniel, and Aaron wait until night, when Kevin’s name flashes over the sky, to move. They don’t utter a word.

Chapter Text

“There’s only three tributes left,” Andrew says out of nowhere. It’s a flippant remark, thrown out to Nathaniel and Aaron. “Excluding us, of course.”

“I can feel the clock ticking,” Nathaniel wryly responds, but the truth weighs the words down. He knows his time is running out. Someone will come running, looking to win, and he will. He won’t win the games, but he’ll win the battle between him and Nathaniel.

And then he, too, will die.

“Weird to think it’s been a week, maybe,” Aaron says from Andrew’s other side. Nathaniel won’t pretend to know, but he thinks Aaron is struggling to cope, still. Eventually he will get there, but Nathaniel doesn’t think he has quite yet. Between Kevin and Erik, the only two other than Andrew who have been constants in the arena, Nathaniel can understand why.

He’s not fully over Jean, either, and he knows Andrew’s not fully okay.

None of the tributes are, how could they be?

“I think we should head for the trees,” Nathaniel says randomly. Anyone who follows them may not know the truth of the fog or the forest like Nathaniel does, like Nathaniel witnessed. He’s willing to use it.

Andrew raises a brow in question. “What’s your game, little fox?”

Nathaniel just smiles.

If Andrew could, he’d freeze the world. The arena is already frozen, but it’s not frozen in the way he would like it to be. He wants time to stop, the world to stop. He wants things to take a collective pause so he can take it in for one, short moment.

Nathaniel takes them back the way he initially came, and Andrew follows behind Aaron who follows behind him. He doesn’t think he’s quite ready for what’s to come. There’s too much to lose, and Andrew’s too used to being in control.

He doesn’t even know what Nathaniel’s plan is.

“Once you touch the fog, don’t stop until you get to the water,” the red-haired man orders. Andrew doesn’t know why he sounds so serious, or why he it is that they can’t stop, but he doesn’t question. He doesn’t have to.

Interesting.

“I’ll explain the plan once were there,” Nathaniel continues. “But I’m serious. Once you touch it, go. Do not stop. I’ll take the back this time.”

He doesn’t quite touch Andrew, but he gestures for him to go on ahead. It makes him nervous to let Nathaniel cover his back, too used to watching others’ and not quite used to having his watched.

It’s disorienting.

Aaron follows directions well, taking off at a sprint once he touches fog. Andrew doesn’t quite do the same, but he picks up his pace at least a little bit. He knows Nathaniel will be itching to run ahead, Andrew knows what a runner looks like. But he won’t run. Andrew trusts him to stay in the back and watch, observe, protect.

Getting attacked is never part of Nathaniel’s plan, but he knew it was coming when he made this one. That’s why when he’s tossed aside like little more than a rock, he comes bouncing right back up, arms swinging, yelling at the twins to fucking run!

He can make this quick, or at least he could if the man attacking him wasn’t three times his size and built like a tank. What the man lacks in brains he makes up for in muscle size. It is kind of impressive, but definitely not what he needs to focus on.

He should’ve killed him earlier, when he had a chance.

He makes quick slices with his knife and avoids to the best of his ability, but he knows he runs on limited time. Jean faded and shifted fast, and Nathaniel isn’t willing to be like that.

He runs and dodges and circles back around. His skin itches and his stomach tightens again, but he knows the other man must feel it, too. Must feel the discomfort and the wrongness to the air. Nathaniel’s glad, for once.

The discomfort is what he needs to distract. He drops low and lets the larger man stumble over him, despite knowing he’ll bruise for his efforts. He’ll be dead by the end anyways, it doesn’t quite matter.

He doesn’t close his eyes when he slits Gorilla’s throat. He isn’t Jean.

A cannon shot fires.

Andrew doesn’t want to listen to Nathaniel, but he does. He takes off after Aaron because he knows that’s the only reason they have for being here. Neither he, nor Nathaniel, plan on making it out of the arena. They only plan on ensuring that Aaron does and Riko does not.

That doesn’t mean Andrew doesn’t hesitate. He does. Aaron continues ahead at breakneck speed while Andrew hovers, watching the fight between bulky and lithe man. He watches long enough to convince himself that Nathaniel is strong enough to win, is cunning enough to make it out. And even if he doesn’t, that he doesn’t care.

By the time he catches up to Aaron, he thinks he’s too late. Drake has him in his clutches, held by the neck against a tree. His skin has holes and his hands are twitchy, but he’s just as strong as always.

Andrew swallows down the bile in his throat and forces himself to act. He moves forward faster than he thought he could, but Drake does, too. By the time Andrew has his knife buried in Drake’s side, Aaron’s eyes have rolled into the back of his head and his body has gone limp.

Andrew stares down at the scene, the bloody mess. He looks at Drake’s dead body, something he wished for at the start, and feels nothing. He looks at Aaron’s, pristine and clean, and feels everything.

Three cannon shots, enough for the entirety of his group. He hopes Nathaniel wasn’t one of them.

He heads for the water.

Chapter Text

Andrew is the first to the water. He doesn’t bother nearing it since Riko has. He stands like a king before the ice, looking down at his ugly reflection. “How’s your brother?”

Andrew doesn’t go for the punch like he wants to, and instead holds his ground. He left one of his knives buried in Drake and he doesn’t feel like going for another quite yet. He wants to wait for Nathaniel.

“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“Don’t feel like it,” Riko replies blandly. “But you can do it for me when you join him.”

“Awfully cocky to say.”

Riko only laughs, finally looking up. He’s all smiles, awfully happy for someone who might die. Might. “Do you think you can win?”

“Yes.”

Impossibly, Riko’s smile widens. “I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Nathaniel half stumbles, half runs to the water. He expected one cannon shot, for the death he caused. He did not expect another two, especially so close. His skin itches, but this time it’s not the fog. His anxiety rips at the surface, threatening to burst.

He knows he should be rooting for Aaron, but he hopes Andrew made it out. He doesn’t think he’s quite ready to say goodbye. Or, well, perhaps he just wants a chance to give one.

He’s not sure.

It takes him longer than it’d usually take for him to reach the water, his battered body protesting the movements. The first thing he notices is that his group is not there. Riko is, and Andrew is, but Aaron is not.

He should not be relieved.

The second thing he notices is that he’s a hint too late, the battle already started. He doesn’t care. He runs straight in. He doesn’t care how he dies, as long as he dies for a good reason. As long as he doesn’t die uselessly. When he wraps his arm around Riko’s neck and pulls him back, stumbling into the water with him, he knows he won't.

He came to protect Riko, but he made his own path. First to protect Jean, then to protect Aaron, and now to protect Andrew. He holds his breath and keeps Riko close, even as the icy water churns around him and the large beings sweep closer.

Andrew will win, and it will be okay because Riko will not.

Andrew watches it happen in slow motion. Nathaniel comes from nowhere, Nathaniel pulls Riko away, Nathaniel falls into the water with Riko.

Neither of them return.

He stands at the ice’s edge, staring into a pool of endless depths full of large spiders and walruses and tiny fish and rising bubbles. He cannot see them anymore. He yearns to dive in, but instead waits for one or two cannon shots to ring out. He waits, and waits, and waits.

Then he hears one.

He waits more, waits for the silence to pass and another to come. It does not. He watches the water churn and shake and watches as Nathaniel pulls himself to the surface free of Riko’s weight.

He heaves in frozen breaths of air and says “sorry,” before he says anything else. Andrew just stares at him because all their plans went to hell, but he wasn’t dead and Nathaniel wasn’t dead. “I had to say goodbye or something first.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Andrew says, hauling him up and out of the water, away from the ice and into the snow before leaning in. Nathaniel is the one to close the distance and kiss him.

“You should win,” Nathaniel says once they separate, gasping for air but yearning for more. “There’s nothing waiting for me outside here. You can win. You can kill me and win.”

“I said shut up.”

“I’m serious.”

Andrew hopes the look in his eyes conveys that he, too, is serious. He doesn’t quite have the words to tell Nathaniel just how serious he is, just how little he actually wants to leaves if it means he has to go on knowing his family is gone and Nathaniel is, too.

“It’s okay,” Nathaniel says as the air whistles and a parachute drops down. Too happy a tune for the scene, in Andrew’s opinion. Andrew reaches for the gift instead of responding, because he’d be lying if he agreed. It wasn’t okay.

“It will be,” Andrew says instead, unfocused. “Give it a day.”

A day later, Nathan Wesninski is dead and both Andrew and Nathaniel are out of the arena, warm and together in Nathaniel’s uncle’s aircraft.

“This isn’t the ideal solution,” Stuart had said when they boarded the ship. “But it’s the best I’ve got, and they let me get this far, so I’d say it’s worked out for the most part.”

Nathaniel cranes his neck to look at Andrew, offering a small smile. “Yeah,” he says. “I’d say so, too.”